COFFEE. 



59 



much better flavour, and producing berries double the size of that 

 species. Added to these advantages is another, which will commend 

 it to all planters — its being more robust, less subject to disease, and 

 hence can be cultivated where the ordinary coffee will not succeed. 



Those who know the plant best assert that it can be cultivated 

 where the ordinary coffee will not succeed. If it has the hardy 

 constitution that is claimed for it, coffee planters will soon be able 

 to pursue their calling at elevations above the fever line. If this 

 species of coffee tree answers all the expectations formed of it, we 

 may expect something akin to a revolution on the estates, not only 

 of Southern India, but of Ceylon also. The Dutch, who have always 

 been most zealous and energetic in introducing and promoting the 

 culture of new plants, are about to send out plants of the Liberian 

 tree to their plantations in Java, and other parts of the Eastern 

 Archipelago. 



Coffee is found growing in a wild state in the province of Bam- 

 baye, the most eastern part of Fonta Djallon, between the Eio 

 Nunez and the Rio Pongo. The island of Goree is the entrepot 

 for this coffee. 



When British settlements and colonies are formed in Eastern 

 Africa, the best coffee harvests there will be in what may be called 

 the coffee belts from 5° to 15° north and south latitude. This would 

 be in the south, that country which was so graphically described in 

 Dr. Livingstone's letters sent home by Stanley, the base ports being 

 Zanzibar and Mozambique ; and in the north, the old coffee-growing 

 country of Abyssinia, and the equatorial Nile basin out of Egyptian 

 territory. Both Dr. Livingstone and Sir Samuel Baker describe these 

 countries as those of a terrestrial paradise, the latter speaking of 

 boundless tracts, situated at a mean altitude of 3000 to 4000 feet 

 above the sea-level, with a fertile soil, healthy climate, regular rainy 

 season, and a docile population, eminently adapted for coffee cul- 

 tivation. 



Cultivation in Natal. — Looking at the number of localities on the 

 African continent where coffee is indigenous, there is no reason why, 

 under proper cultivation and judicious management, coffee should not 

 succeed well at Natal. It has been grown there on a small scale, 

 but from want of proper attention and management, and neglect of 

 weeding, or from exhaustion of the soil, the trees have been attacked 

 with fungi, and the crop has latterly failed. In 1870, 2700 cwts. were 

 shipped, in 1874 only 680 cwts. 



The samples of Natal coffee, however, shown at the various Inter- 

 national Exhibitions at London, Dublin, and Paris, were of good 

 quality, and in view of the demand for coffee outstripping the supply, 

 the more widely the culture can be extended, especially in our own 

 colonies, the better. 



The following directions for Natal are from an old and experienced 

 coffee planter : 



In eighteen months after being transplanted from the nursery into 

 the field, the coffee trees should begin to bear fruit, and will go on, 

 gradually increasing in quantity, until the seventh or eighth year, 

 when they may be considered to have arrived at their full bearing, 



