267 



Penang or Malacca, in the Malay Peninsula, Sarawak Gutta-percha 

 is exported wholly to Singapore. 



The India Rubber World page ijy, February /, 1902. 



PLANTING IN BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA. 



Mlanji is not the most tropical district of the whole Protecto- 

 rate. It is fairly low, hot and humid most of the year, while it 

 probably gets double the average amount of rain which falls in 

 other parts of the Shire Highlands. As a Coffee district it was 

 perhaps not so much spoken about as that district which a certain 

 Missionary called the home of coffee, but still much was expected 

 from it owing to its rich soil and excellent rainfall. Unfortunately, 

 it has suffered to some extent from a lack of labour but more from 

 the baneful effects of Ceylon methods. When one considers the 

 matter one cannot help coming to the conclusion that Ceylon me- 

 thods, so much vaunted in their tight little island, have been the 

 ruin of many a young Dlanter, and have nearly proved the ruin of 

 our young industry heie. 



Happily, however, things appear to be brightening up and just 

 when planters most needed some heartening. Mr. Brown after 

 trying his best to produce coffee on the old Ceylon plan of clearing 

 the forest, with its ruinous waste of timber, soil and humus, has 

 been turning his attention, like most of us, to shade. He has been 

 experimenting with indigenous shade, has, in fact, planted coffee 

 in the natural forest. Nowhere else but in Mlanji could you plant 

 coffee under forest shade for the simple reason that all the other 

 districts have woods, but Mlanji occupies the enviable position of 

 possessing decent forest. The trees in Mr. Brown S shade clearing 

 are on an average, fifty feet high and very few trees were felled when 

 the clearing was made. The coffee is now three years in the ground 

 and is on an average six feet high. One of the primaries which 

 was measured by the writer was certainly five feet three inches 

 long, and on going through the parts where the shade is thickest 

 one has to force one's way by pushing aside the interlocking bran- 

 ches. The strange thing is that wherever there is a break in the 

 forest and no shade available the coffee is extremely poor, and that 

 the coffee is best where the shade is thickest. But the strangest 

 thing of all to most people is the fact that the trees at present have 

 a crop on them varying from three to eight cwts. I might put the 

 figure higher as a maximum but it is best to be safe. In a month 

 or two the- crop will have matin ed sufficiently to be quite certain 

 of its quality, but at present there is not the slightest evidence of 

 unsoundness of bean. Last year the maiden crop was lost by a bad 

 attack of thrips but with the favourable blossoming season which has 

 prevailed this year the crop so far has had every chance, and if only 

 it comes to maturity it will be a striking proof of what coffee can do 

 under shade. It is a pleasure to be able to congratulate Mr. HENRY 

 Brown, after all his efforts, on having reached success at last, and we 

 sincerely hope that the brilliant promise of the present will be fulfilled, 



