October i, 1889.I THF TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
275 
and million bags of Santos, but the estimate for 
Rio de Janeiro was slightly too high, and from the 
latest information received it appears that the total 
for the two crops amounts to 6J million bags. In 
the two coffee districts of Sao Paulo and Rio de 
Janeiro it has been found from long experience that 
the crop-bearing capacities of the trees differ consider- 
ably. In Sao Paulo trees be^in to bear when they 
are four or five years old. At first the crop is very 
small, but after six years the crops are heavier, and 
between the fourth and sixteenth year each branch 
bears a crop every year. The crop is regularly good 
in one year, and middling the next; but from the 
sixteenth to the twenty-fifth year this regularity 
changes ; the crop is good one year, little or nothing 
the next, and the following year middling, and then again 
follows a good crop, a bad crop, and middling crop 
in regular succession. The order changes again from 
the twenty-fifth to the thirty-fifth year. The tree 
takes longer to get into full bearing, and the crops 
are less regular. After the thirty-fifth year the only 
trees that bear are those that are planted in the 
very best soil. Such trees produce a poor crop, 
and it certainly does not pay to work them, now 
that slavery has been abolished, and all labour has 
to be paid for. If the soil is not of the first quality 
the trees will not bear after the twenty-fifth year. 
In Sao Paulo the planters use little or no manure, 
and the soil is gradually becoming impoverished, which 
is begiuning to tell on the crops more severely 
every year. On the plantations in the Rio de Janeiro 
province the trees begin to bear later than in Sao 
i'aulo, nor do they hold out so long. The estates 
are amongst the mountains where the soil is less rich, 
and where the trees have in consequence to be re- 
newed more often. With these facts as to the order 
of crops before them it is easy for those interested 
in the Brazilian trade to estimate pretty accurately 
what the out-turn should be in any year. Unless frost, 
or some other contretemps intervenes, crops are pro- 
duced in the order mentioned above, and on these 
data the out-turn for the year 1889-90 has been 
estimated, and will be found to be 4 million bags, 
as compared with 6J millions last year. But even 
this low figure will be found probably too high, as 
a season of drought occurred at the beginuing of the 
year just when rain was most needed. 
The question of labour has become a most press- 
ing one to Brazilian planters. Even with slaves the 
planters had found it hard enough to make things 
pay since 1881, when prices were so much reduced. 
But slavery was abolished last year, and the cost of 
working has as a natural consequence considerably 
increased. In Sao Paulo a system of labour re- 
cruitment was quickly organised before matters came 
to a crisis, but in the Rio de Janeiro province labour 
has not been procared fast enough to take the place 
of the liberated slaves. The consequence is the plan- 
ters are all at sixes and sevens, and, far from replanting 
tracts where the trees are out of bearing, sufficient 
labou r cannot even be found to carry on the work 
required for the trees that are bearing full crops. 
Things are gradually righting themselves, however, 
and replanting will soon commence, but as such 
trees will not come into bearing for another five or 
six years, no very great augmentation of out-turn 
may be expected before then. In fact a considerable 
decrease may be looked for, because the number of 
trees that are getting too old to bear crops is very 
considerable, owing to the extensive plantiog that 
took placj between twenty-five and thirty years ago. 
This ought to be good news for Indian coffee planters, 
and it must lead them to hope that the recent bad 
times in coffee planting are not likely to recur for 
Bome years at all events. By a series of calculations, 
which are too detailed to reproduce here, it has been 
estimated that the total amount ot coffee from all 
sources which will be placed on the world's market 
from March, 1st 1889, to July 1st, 1890, will be 13J 
million bags. From statistics furnished by several 
eminent continental firms in the coffee tuide, it 
appears that the average annual consumption for the 
last six years amount to 10g million bags, so that 
if these figures are applied to the 16 months from 
March 1st, 1889 to July 1st, 1890, considerably more 
than 14 million bags will be required. But only 13 J 
million bags will be put on the market during that 
period, so that the supply will not quite meet the 
demand ; the natural consequence will be enhancement 
of prices. But besides this, the average demand ought 
in the ordinary course of events to be somewhat 
higher this year, because of the abnormal tightness 
in the market last year. Buyers were keeping back 
and would only buy what they actually required. 
They were waiting for lower prices, and kept up the 
supply by indenting on reserve stocks. These re- 
serve stocks have now pretty well been exhausted 
with the result that they have had to be replenished 
by buying in the open market. This is the cause of 
the recent high prices. By examining carefully the 
present and prospective state of the coffee trade one 
arrives at the conclusion that high prices will pro- 
bably rule for a long time and without interruption. 
The low prices that have ruled during these last few 
years have had their effect in reducing the out-turn 
in all parts of the world, so that those planters 
who have held on are likely soon to reap the reward 
for their patience. Java and Ceylon which formerly 
were wont to produce a large amount of coffee, 
have not had the patience to wait for the time when 
the reaction from the too keen competition would 
set in, and in every coffee-producing country the es- 
tates that have been abandoned, or planted with 
other commodities, such as tea, are almost innumer- 
able. The days of unremunerative prices for coffee 
are evidently past and a revival of coffee planting 
enterprise in this country during the next few years 
may be expected. — Madras Mail. 
VEGETATION ON THE LIME SOILS OF THE 
MEDITERRANEAN. 
I believe that it is an acknowledged fact] that a 
lime soil contains in abundance the mineral constituents 
required by most plants, and that with sunshine and 
water it may be considered a naturally fertile soil, 
even in the partial or total absence of manure, natural 
or artificial. Such is, undoubtedly, the case in the 
Mediterranean area, where most of the mountains and 
rocks — indeed, nearly all the principal geological for- 
mations — are formed by secondary limestones. 
Throughout this region — the Genoese Riviera — on the 
islands, and on the shores of Mediterranean, manure 
is very little used except in the vicinity of towns, for 
a very good reason : it is both rare and very expen- 
sive. Compared with the northern parts of Europe, 
there are very few cattle or domestic animals in the 
sparsely populated regions, and artificial manures may 
be said to be all but practically unknown. The 
peasantry live all but exclusively on corn or Maize 
flour, Beans, Chestnuts, farinaceous Dates, Olive oil, 
fruit and wine, consuming very little animal food, often 
none at all. In this all but vegetable diet they find 
all the elements of nutrition required both to produce 
heat and force, and to repair the wear and tear of the 
organic machinery, the body; carbon, nitrates, its 
mineral constituents, &c. These food habits, producing 
vigorous, strong, healthy organisations, prove that the 
theory that attributes the generation of heat and force 
in man wholly to nitrogenous food in the shape of 
animal substances is a mistake. Heat and force are 
principally generated from the carbon of the food, as 
in a railway engine ; animal food does little else but 
repair the wear and tear of the machinery in the 
body, and should not be taken in excess, as it gen- 
erally is with the well-to-do. 
In these southern regions, exposure to the atmo- 
sphere, and to the intense heat and light of the sun 
seem to renovate the soil, to renew its vitality and 
fertility to a considerable extent, and to enable it 
(provided the supply of water be abundant) to reproduce 
the plants specially suited to lime soils. The require- 
ments of such plants, however, are not very great, 
as evidenced by the history of the Ivy, which grow 
with vigour everywhere 014 old raortar of walls with- 
