50 THE NATURE AND CULTIVATION OF COFFEE. 



acre to defray the ordinary cultivation expenses, and 

 that an estate can only be profitable when it yields 

 above that quantity, and that its intrinsic value depends 

 solely on the amount it produces above this ratio. It 

 not unfrequently occurs that inexperienced parties be- 

 come possessed of estates that are really worse than 

 useless because they have not been able to form any 

 reliable estimate of the expenditure requisite to culti- 

 vate an acre, and they have been deceived by the 

 statement that the estate produced a certain number of 

 hundredweights without ascertaining correctly of how 

 many acres these were the produce, and thus, although 

 600 cwts. from 100 acres would yield a handsome 

 profit, the same quantity from 200 acres would not 

 more than pay the cultivation expenses; from this 

 cause it will be obvious that nothing can be more falla- 

 cious than the system of valuation by the number of 

 acres. As a general rule an estate yielding less than 

 5 cwts. an acre, is not worth more than 20 an acre, 

 whilst an estate giving 10 cwts. is certainly worth 60, 

 and so on in an increasing ratio. The net value of a 

 cwt. of coffee on the trees is about 50s. both in India 

 and Ceylon, and it will cost fully the value of 3 cwts. 

 for the ordinary annual cultivation expenses per acre, 

 exclusive of the crop expenses. An estate of 200 acres, 

 yielding 5 cwts. per acre only, would not give there- 

 fore an annual profit of more than 1,000, whilst the 

 same extent, if giving 10 cwts. per acre, would clear 

 3,500. 



In the valuation of estates also, care should be had 

 to take a fair average of three or four years, nothing 

 being more common than for the value to be fixed on 



