ST. HELENA 75 



The St. Helena coffee has descended from the true Mocha stock 

 imported by the East India Company, is of excellent quality, and the 

 trees bear wonderfully well considering that they are never manured. 

 The dry seasons seem to be favourable to them, for the crops are 

 then exceptionally heavy : it is said that a small patch of coffee in 

 Plantation ground, containing about 286 bushes, yielded about 

 428 lb. of dried coffee, an average of about i£ lb. per bush, but in 

 Sandy Bay the yield of coffee per bush is nearly double. Our late 

 Governor, His Excellency R. A. Sterndale, is of opinion, confirmed 

 by a practical tea-grower from Assam, that tea could also be grown 

 to a limited extent for home consumption. , , 



Coffee is grown in small patches, and its cultivation is capable 

 of great improvement. Mr. Melliss states that some of the island- 

 grown coffee took the first prize for best quality at the Exhibition 

 of 1851. Dr. Morris reports in 1883: "At Plantation House, 

 Terrace Knoll, Bambu Grove, Elliott's Prospect and Oaklands I 

 saw very fine patches of coffee, somewhat neglected, it is true, but 

 indicating the capabilities of the island to grow in sheltered hollows 

 a fair quantity of very good coffee." 



One pound of St. Helena cotton in the bole contains five ounces 

 of lint cotton and eleven ounces of seed. Thirty-five pounds of lint 

 to the hundredweight, or one ton of 2,240 lb. of cotton out of the 

 field, will make a bale of 700 lb., valued at £1 1 13s. $d. more or less. 

 This is not including 1,540 lb. of seed. One hundred pounds seed 

 gives two gallons of oil, 48 lb. of oil-cake, 6 lb. of fatty oil, for soap- 

 making, while the residue is a first-class manure ; and yet this cotton 

 tree is wholly neglected and the pods burst year after year, dis- 

 charging their precious cargo in vain. 



The following letters show the opinion of experts of coffee 

 and cotton : — 



To Messrs. Wm. Burnie &■ Co., London. From St. Helena. 

 Gentlemen, — 



We have submitted the sample of coffee received by you from 

 St. Helena to the Trade, who have tested it, and pronounced it to 

 be of a very superior quality and flavour, and if cultivated to any 

 extent would no doubt amply repay the grower. In the present 

 state of the market the value would be from 125/- to 130/- per cwt. 

 and under any circumstances we consider that it would realize from 

 100/- to no/- per cwt. There is but one objection, and that, of a 

 very trivial nature, viz. that it is not sufficiently cleaned from the 

 thin silvery skin ; if your friends will pay a little more attention 

 to this point, it would enhance the value here 5/- to 10/- per cwt., 

 and ultimately prove a very valuable and secure source of income 

 to them. 



We are, gentlemen, 



Your most obedient servants, 



Burrow and Kerkman. 



London, May 16, 1839. 



