255 © 
* Here about 100 acres had been cleared and established in coffee 
under the shade of bananas, with corn as an — crop. e 
coffee irees, about 30,000 in number, were from one to two years old from 
the time of planting. Seed had been obtained ion. Martinique, Trinidad, 
and Guatemala. As a whole the plantation was in a promising state ; 
in some places the trees were oversha y nas, and consequently 
the plants were weak and *spindled." There is no doubt, also, that 
the ground had been somewhat — by the excessive crop 
corn a which was then being ta 
st of the trees about two years old were, hownver, bearing their 
first pes 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 undertaking and increased the 
expense 
“I left the plantation, however, with a favourable impression 
respecting the possibility of growing good coffee in British Honduras, 
and I have no doubt that if coolie labour could be obtained, the whole 
s at r acr 
remoteness of the district, get Pes 42 to 50 cents per day." 
In 1885 Mr. Edwin Forrest, a Ceylon planter, was employed for a 
short period in the colony, and he furnished the following account 
the San Filipe Coffee Estate :— 
Extracts from a Report to the BELIZE ee on the 
San FILIPE COFFEE Estat 
The “San Filipe ” Coffee Estate is distant from Belize about 65 
miles ina straight line. It is situated in the Western District, near the 
es fro 
on the estate, nor at the Cayo. It wou very useful to sa a 
rain-gauge and journal kept on this estate, or in the he 
Government might start a aang at the ‘police station at the Cayo. 
lan 
said to be opened (judging by a dii of the plants), but I think that 
the ae wil be more when surveyed. As regards roads a main 
M runs —— the estate, with branch roads at right angles 25 feet 
These roads are just now mostly grown over with bush and 
wells 
In the nurseries there are about 300,000 healthy coffee plants ready 
for planting out. The buildings consist of a house of three rooms with 
stone walls and cement floor and a thatched roof of — leaves. There 
are several outbuildings and sheds for animals. A good double disc 
pulper, by John Gordon & Co., London, is in use on the estate. The 
stoek consists of 26 cows, 9 horse-kin ut 40 pigs; the grazing is 
, as the above are all fed on nothing but natural grasses, except the 
pigs, which get plantains. The estate has produced about 120 bushels 
f y 
ar 
produce from these have been more than could be sold or consumed in 
A 2 
