CHAPTER XVn. 



COFFEE CTTLTTTEE IN THE WEST INDIES. 



The Dutch were the first to introduce the coffee-plant into 

 the West Indies, as they had been the pioneers of its cultivation 

 in the East. In 1710 a tree had been sent from Batavia to the 

 Botanic Gardens of Amsterdam, where it prospered and produced 

 fruit. Some of the young plants propagated from this parent 

 stock were, in 1718, taken by the Dutch to their colony of Suri- 

 nam, where the culture was carefully extended, as well as in 

 Berbice and Demerara. But jealous monopoly has ever marked 

 Dutch colonial policy, and the wprthy tropical Hollanders were 

 probably in no hurry to present their neighbors right and left 

 with the valuable evergreens. The coffee-plant, however, found 

 its way ia a most provoking manner to the French island of Mar- 

 tinique. It is said that the Botanic Garden of Paris surrepti- 

 tiously procured a cutting from the Amsterdam garden, and 

 therefrom raised a vigorous tree. From this a slip was entrusted, 

 for introduction into the "West Indies, to a French officer named 

 Declieux, who is reported, during an unusually long and stormy 

 voyage, to have shared his daily ration of water with the young 

 plant. The slip reached Martinique safely, in 1720, and became 

 the parent of an immense progeny ; for its descendants not only 

 peopled the fields of Martinique and Guadaloupe, but in a few 

 years spread to Jamaica, Porto Kico, Hayti, Cuba, the smaller 

 Antilles and Central America, the Guianas, and the Brazils, 

 where alone the prolific family numbers at the present day proba- 

 bly six hundred million members. 



The progress of the coffee industry in the "West Indies placed 

 those islands for a time at the head of coffee-producing countries, 

 but from that position they are now strangely fallen. The rapid 



