130 COFFEE: ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



the same rate of productiveness had been continued, 

 Ceylon should now have yielded something over a 

 million cwts. of plantation Coffee. The present 

 yield is not half that amount. A recent island crop 

 of Coffee was only 436,991 cwts., being less than 

 that of any previous year since the disastrous year 

 1854, which is talked of in Ceylon very much as 

 the year after the Bombay Share mania is talked 

 of here. The export of beans in 1881 was 219,674 

 cwts. less than 1880, and 361,344 cwts. less than the 

 average export of the previous ten years. At the 

 customs' rate of Rs. 50 per cwt. this would be an 

 annual falling-off of Rs. 1,80,67,200. 



There are other reasons, unfortunately, in addi- 

 tion to the leaf disease to prevent the Ceylon 

 planters taking a cheerful view of their position. 

 The estates best suited to Coffee have been worked 

 out. There is now no such soil left as when the 

 districts of Pussellawa, Nilambe, Dumbara, Rangala, 

 Hunasgiriya, and Kotmale were in their prime. For 

 many years the planters kept up the quality of the 

 soil by returning to it, in the form of artificial 

 manures, some of the essential elements. They are 

 too poor now to make any attempts of this kind. 

 In 1877 the value of imported manures is given in 

 the Custom-house returns at Rs. 26,14,019. In the 

 returns of 1881 the value is only Rs. 3,75,883. Then, 

 again, the area over which Coffee is now grown has 

 been greatly extended. The Brazils alone produce 

 more than half the total amount of Coffee consumed 



