COFFEE COUNTRIES. 



BRITISH HONDURAS 



257 



A country with all the advantages of English rule. 

 There would seem to be at present only one small 

 Coffee estate in the colony, and that of an experi- 

 mental character. The following description of 

 this attempt will be read with interest, and it will 

 be noticed that in this, as in all the more important 

 industries, Mr. Morris (in " British Honduras," 

 E. Stanford, Charing Cross) speaks of a regular 

 supply of labour from external sources as essential 

 to success : 



" About ioo acres had been cleared and established in 

 Coffee under the shade of bananas, with corn as an inter- 

 mediary crop. The Coffee trees about 30,000 were from 

 one to two years old, planted out. Seed had been obtained 

 from Martinique, Trinidad and Guatemala. As a whole, the 

 plantation was in a promising state ; in some cases the trees 

 were overshadowed by bananas, and consequently, the plants 

 were weak and ' spindled.' There is no doubt also that the 

 ground had been somewhat impoverished by the large crop 

 of corn (maize) which was then being taken off. 



" Most of the trees about two years old were, however, 

 bearing their first crop, and looked as if, even at this early 

 age, some two or three hundredweights per acre would be 

 yielded by them. The plantation was well laid out, with 

 roads and intervals of 18 feet dividing the blocks. Naturally, 

 being a pioneering effort, the best mode of procedure adapted 

 to the district could not be obtained at once; and, again, 

 the difficulty of obtaining labour had hampered the under- 

 taking and increased the expenses. 



" I left the plantation, however, with a favourable impres- 

 sion respecting the possibility of growing good Coffee in 



