CHAPTEE XVI. 



THE EEAZILIA2(r PEODUCT. 



We now come to consider tlie position of Brazil, tlie veritable 

 colussus among coffee-producers. 



A coffeepla'nt was brought over in 1722, from the French 

 colony of Cayenne to Para, in the Amazon district, where the cul- 

 tivation, however, was only undertaken after the promulgation of 

 a decree in 1761, exempting the new agricultural product from 

 export duties. From the Amazon the culture extended to Maran- 

 hao, whence in 1774, two small trees were taken to the province 

 of Pio and planted in a private garden, near the convent of Adjuda. 

 The trees prospered, and subsequently an enterprising Belgian, 

 named Molke, opened a regular coffee plantation amidst the great 

 fields of sugar-cane and cereals which then constituted the chief 

 wealth of the province. Such, we are told, were the beginnings 

 of that immense culture which now supplies more than one half 

 of the world's coffee. 



The coffee industry in Brazil did not at the outset display 

 that marvellous rapidity of growth, which had signalized the cul- 

 tivation in the "West Indies. While the island of Hayti, in little 

 more than seventy-five years after the introduction of the plant, 

 had exported nearly eighty millions of pounds of coffee per an- 

 num, Brazil, at the end of a period of about equal length, in 

 1820, -did not export more than fourteen million pounds of the ar- 

 ticle. Cuba was then shipping a yearly average of twenty-five 

 million pounds. From that time forth, however, the coffee pro- 

 duction of Brazil began to assume remarkable proportions. Stim- 

 ulated by the high prices of the staple and the adaptability of the 

 country to coffee-raising, the planters of the province of Eio 

 had commenced the wholesale conversion of the former sugar 

 and other estates into coffee plantations. In 1830, the exports 

 from Eio de Janeiro had already increased to 391,785 bags, or 



