412 
Vietoria Nyanza on - north a Lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa and 
the Stephenson Roa 
he only item of pai ge mitaaa from an agricultural mu of 
view from German East Africa is the occurrenee on the newly planted 
coffee areas of the well-known but Pipe coffee-leaf disease of 
ylon (Hemileia vastatria 
inthe Kew Bulletin, 1893, p. 361, correspondence was published on 
the subject of preventive measures to be adopted in British Central Africa 
for keeping out this disease from the coffee plantations in the Shire 
Highlands. The need for these measures is now greatly enforced by 
the calamity tiae has overtaken the German plantations to the north. 
Mr. H. H. Johnsion, C.B., regarded the “ introduction of the leaf disease 
* of Ceylon into uw coffee plantations ue — Africa as likely to ruin 
15 
* the commencing prosperity of the country." There is no doubt the 
disease is in German territory. Seite mens of diseased coffee leaves 
were [hah to Kew by the Deutsch- Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft and 
at request and expense a telegraphic message was sent to Africa 
confirming - suspicion that the disease was Hemileia vastatrix. Mr. 
Gosselin s :— 
“The yik coffee disease has unfortunately been discovered this 
season in East Africa. Every effort is being made to exterminate it, but if 
naturally throw back the Koao of what promised 
to be onë of the most successful crops in the Colon 
CCCCXXVIL—SISAL HEMP IN THE BAHAMAS. 
The gradual development of the Sisal hemp industry in the Bahamas 
continues to be watched with a good deal of interest. It is now in a 
position when exports of prepared fibre have begun to be made and its 
value quoted as a regular article of commerce. “An n important statement 
on the subject (in continuation of that in Kew Bulletin, 1894, p. 189) 
contained in the following extract from the Annual Repo rt on the 
Taken for 1893, submitted by the Governor, Sir Ambrose Shea, to 
the Secretary of State for the Colonies [ Colonial Reports, Annual, 
No. 110, 1894. ] 
The export of Bahama hemp amounted in 1893 to 1,2007. as against 
692/. in 1892. The area of Crown land now disposed of is 85,000 
acres, while about 15,000 acres of private land is also in course of 
cultivation, The quantity planted at the end of 1893 was 17,000 acres, 
an annual increase of about 6,000 acres will be the rate of progress. 
The history of the origin and growth of this nut has so often 
been written that but little remains to be said in that ati 
It will, hereafter, be a record of increasing Siveloguidat and soci 
advancement which sites now appear to be as assured as is nDe 
in the course of human events. As far as the welfare of the Colony is 
cerned there seems to be the minimum of uncertainty, for it is nof 
coii váble that the value of the fibre can go below the cost of produc- 
tion, though the profit, as in the case of all commercial enter rises, must 
ever be an u neertain and varying quantity, The export of 1893 was 
SALA below the ARES ei though not from want of an ample supply of 
