COST AND PROFIT. 223 



applies to companies, who are likely to get a good 

 dividend much sooner and much more regularly 

 by the thorough and skilful cultivation of a 

 moderate extent of well -planted land than by 

 rushing recklessly forward presumably with the 

 idea that profits depend on the " paper " acreage 

 under Coffee in their names. 



" Forty times out of fifty," an old planter 

 says, "the true reason of failure and disappointment 

 in this branch of agriculture is due to more land 

 being taken in hand than the limits of available 

 capital warrant." Borrowing does not do in India 

 or elsewhere, and there it is especially ruinous 

 since money cannot be got under 9 or 10 per 

 cent. We know it has been said land can be 

 brought into bearing for ^8 and 10 an acre. 

 Undoubtedly it can, in a manner, but in a style 

 neither cheap nor profitable, and which means 

 constant patching and mending with means which 

 might be turned to much better account. The 

 Englishman who is misled by such statements, 

 and plunges into Coffee planting "with < Young 

 Ceylon ' in one pocket and ^1,000 in the other" 

 will speedily find he has been over-confident. Still 

 1,000 is a handsome " nest egg," and to the 

 possessor of such we would say, by advertising 

 or through friends get a berth as assistant on a 

 garden in Southern India, Fiji, or anywhere else, 

 and serve three years' apprenticeship. During 

 those three years learn everything you can, im- 





