COST AND PROFIT. 227 



native country which is the goal of even the 

 most contented Anglo-Indian. 



Certain estates in Ceylon for a long time gave 

 an average yield of gj cwt. a year at times 

 when the market was very high. No wonder the 

 prosperity of the island increased as these pro- 

 perties and others like them drew wealth and 

 commerce to her shores. 



Very many estates in the best times of the 

 enterprise returned regularly 30 and 46 per cent, on 

 their opening costs, and fortunes were made rapidly. 

 Then came the leaf disease, and " bug," and now 

 there can be no doubt but that the planters are 

 discouraged. It by no means follows that Coffee in 

 Ceylon or Southern India is played out. Restricted 

 planting means (even in face of other producing 

 countries) a smaller supply which in turn leads to 

 an enhanced price. Not only so, but byour most 

 recent news from the East, the leaf disease is 

 showing signs of decreasing severity passing over 

 estates without doing a fraction of the damage it 

 once did. Everything points to the fact that Coffee 

 will flourish again, and even to-day, if we keep our- 

 selves out of debt, and earn by careful cultivation 

 some twelve or thirteen per cent, on the capital 

 embarked, we shall have little cause to grumble, 

 since there are very few branches of agriculture 

 which yield any greater per centage with regularity. 

 The life, too, if a hard one at first, is by no means 

 without its pleasures the noble scenery of the 



