AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 

 AND 



FEDERATED MALAY 5TATE5. 



No. 5.] MAY, 1910. [VuL. IX 



COFFEA ROBUSTA. 



All article on this Coffee has recently been published by the 

 F.M.S. Government. The plant, correctly known as Coffea Laurcntii 

 robusta, was introduced to the country by the Botanical Gardens of 

 Singapore, in 1900, the plants being received from Kew. Some were 

 sent to Selangor a year or two later. We found it very floriferous, 

 and a most beautiful ornamental plant, the branches covered with its 

 fragrant white flowers, but its fruiting power was not as great, very 

 few fruits in proportion to its flowers were produced. This might 

 improve, as it Often happens that a newly introduced plant does not 

 fruit well for its first few years, though eventually becoming a 

 more heavy fruiter. It certainly seems to have done better in Java. 

 Unfortunately the writer of the article alluded to, Mr. Gallagher, 

 does not give any figures as to the return of the plant in the 

 peninsula, a most important point in the case of a crop whicli has 

 shown poorly at first at least in our country. 



Coffea rohusta came into cultivation here shortly after C .slc/w- 

 phylla was introduced, but just at that time (^jffee cultivation was 

 being dropped. Mr. W. W. Bailey, at Highhmds, got both plants 

 from the Singapore Gardens as he was keen on new Coffees, and 

 from a plant of C stenophylla, one of the first three or four wc intro- 

 duced, raised a very fine hybrid with C Uberica, which Dr. Treub 

 declared would revolutionise the coftee industry. It fruited very 

 early and cropped well with a very superior class of coftee. What 

 became of his little plot of stcnophylla hybrids f 



No doubt had Coffee cultivation not been dropped almost entirely 

 in these years Coffea robusta and the stenopliylla hybrids would have 

 been long ere this extensively cultivated in the F.M.S. We shall be 

 interested to hear if in Selangor C. robusta fruits as well there as it 

 does in Java. To this day in Singapore it is a very poor fruiter 

 compared with liberiea or even Arabiea. 



