CHAPTER XX 



DISEASES OF COFFEE 



At the present day coffee is nowhere grown in more than a 

 scattered and casual fashion in the British islands of the Lesser 

 Antilles. From the French islands it is still an important 

 article of export, enjoying a protected market. Coffee-growing 

 was at one time the principal industry of Dominica, and was at 

 the height of its prosperity near the end of the eighteenth 

 century, when some 20,000 acres, mostly at low levels near the 

 coast, were occupied by coffee estates, and the export of beans 

 amounted to 4 to 5 millions of pounds. By 1823 this had declined 

 to 2 millions, and from 1833 the reduction was extremely rapid, 

 reaching an average of some 60,000 lb. in the years about 1850 

 and 15,000 lb. about 1870. At the present time the export is 

 only about a ton a year. 



The almost precipitous decline of coffee production in 

 Dominica has been attributed to the prevalence of " blights," 

 especially a leaf-mining moth. A report made to the President 

 in 1875 by H. Prestoe, Government Botanist of Trinidad, de- 

 finitely denies this, and attributes the failure to the neglect of 

 the most elementary principles of cultivation which followed 

 the disorganisation of estates after the abolition of slavery, 

 together with the effects of the reduction of humidity on the 

 coastal lands brought about by extensive clearing of forest. 

 At the same time sugar production offered a highly attractive 

 alternative industry, which was to a considerable extent adopted. 



Apart from these causes one may trace the usual history 

 of planting on virgin soils. In the course of time, slowly with a 

 tree crop such as coffee, the original fertility declines, no means 

 of restoration are adopted, the trees grow old and lose their 

 vigour, while debility diseases and pests of little importance to 

 healthy trees become evident and receive the blame. A period 

 of acute depression ensues and it frequently happens, as in this 

 case, that a change of crop is made. 



Alternatively a tradition of sound agriculture based on 

 cultivation and manuring may be gradually established, and 

 if it were commercially desirable to revive the coffee industry on 

 these lines there seems to be no sound reason to believe that the 

 present known diseases of the plant need cause any serious 

 interference. 



225 Q 



