53° 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [February r, 1888. 
fields. We all know that young plantations bear 
well in seasons that are not suitable for old coffee 
trees. 
Much has been written about the long spell of 
dry weather during July and August of this year 
having destroyed the expectations of a good show 
of flower in September or October, — the latter being 
the principal blossoming month. But you Ceylon 
coffee planters are glad of a dry January and 
February to secure you good blossoms in March 
and April. 
Rain has however fallen all over the coffee dis- 
tricts during the early days of September, and 
there is no doubt the coffee crop for season 1888-9 
will be, if not above an average, at least equal to 
former years. 
Much cry has been heard of disease amongst the 
old coffee districts. As I mentioned to you 
before, this has run itself out, and the coffee 
along with it, in the lower parts of the prov- 
ince of Rio. It has now got a hold in the upper 
parts. It is difficult to get a good description of 
its characteristics : some say it is a fungus, others 
an insect which attacks the leaves, while many 
hold that it is at the roots the attack is made. 
One fact, however, is notable, that this blight, 
of whatever nature it may be, seems to visit old 
districts only. This seems to suggest that there is 
some ingredient in the soil necessary to the healthy 
growth of coffee which becomes exhausted. Through 
time, owing to this the coffee plant gets weakened, 
and becomes an easy prey to disease. Healthy trees 
get affected also in the same way that we find in 
everyday life healthy subjects attacked by diseases 
which have been generated in a community, from 
oauses in which the want of proper food or neglect 
or ignorance of sanitary laws is among the number. 
There is an unlimited field for coffee in Brazil — 
there are enormous tracts of forest lands only 
waiting for means of communication with the sea 
ports. The coffee tree flourishes as well in Ceara at 
a latitude of 3 degrees south, as it does at 24 degrees 
south in Sao Paulo, and between these lies an inland 
zone many hundred miles in width, with a large 
part covered with virgin forest, in a salubrious 
climate, being for the most part an undulating 
plateau from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above sea-level. 
As long as the railway extension propaganda 
continues to spread, just so long will Brazil continue 
increasing her exports of coffee. Old coffee estates 
will continue to die out, from want of weeding, 
from growing corn and beans amongst it wherever 
there is the least projection of light, and the want of 
manure. This any plant would be expected to do. 
What does it matter ? It has given good returns to 
the owner, and the latter contentedly buys a 
piece of land near where the next projected railway 
extension is being surveyed and moves his living 
property thither. Many of the old people remain 
in old districts — owing to old associations, and 
plant corn, beans, mandioca, and cane. None 
of these products gives much profit, for the three 
first have to compete with the provinces of the 
south, where European colonization has taken a 
firm hold, and the last mentioned can only be 
grown to pay where there may be a central 
factory near. Cane, however, is the only crop 
which can be made to pay in these old districts, 
and every new sugar factory which is opened 
shows the adaptability of these old coffee fields for 
cane growing. How rich the soil must have been 
is shown in its having produced crops of coffee, 
corn, beans and mandioca for ever so many years 
without a particle of manure, and now in giving 
luxuriant crops of a plant which has been found 
in the British colonies to be so exhausting. The 
word manure is not met with in the Braailiau 
vocabulary. Who would spend money in manure when 
we have so much land to fall back on? In the flatter 
lands along the coast, if the cane crop appears smaller 
in a field where five or six cuttings have been taken 
from the same plant (or as they would say in tha 
colonies after five or six ratoonings), it is left to rest 
for a year or two, for weeds and undergrowth to 
take charge of it, and to supply its place they clean, 
burn, and plant some other piece. 
But I have digressed from the subject of coffee ; 
and I find I have also filled my sheet, so I must 
l«ave what more I had to say for a future opportunity. 
A. SCOTT-BLAOKLAW. 
♦ 
COFFEE, SUGAR, AND TOBACCO IN 
NETHERLANDS INDIA. 
(Translated for the SfraitsTimes. ) 
Dr. Burck, the acting manager of the Government 
Botanical garden at Buitenzorg has made public, full 
particulars regarding the specific against coffee leaf 
disease. Assuredly, there will be no want of experi- 
menting with it, now that the discoverer who, how- 
ever, does not yet feel quite certain of success, has 
shown that no one need be deterred from trying it 
on the score of expense. It seems however to be a 
sure fact that, in some parts of Java, the planters 
have got the better of the disease. Hence, there is 
every prospect of a bumper coffee crop next year. 
Sugar bears every appearance of yielding handsome 
profits should present prices keep on. Badly managed 
estates fetch a mere trifle when thrown on the market, 
but, recently, an estate which happened to stand under 
good management, realised a high price. Wherever 
the cost of production has been lessened sufficiently 
to admit of work being conducted remuneratively, the 
future looks hopeful enough. Estate owners have now 
•very chance of easing themselves of the burden of 
debt they labour under. Meanwhile the banks which 
have advanced them capital have incurred serious risks. 
The most flourishing branch of planting enterprise 
at present turns out to be tobacco growing, especially 
on the EastOoast of Sumatra. That residency is now 
in through telegraphic communication with Java since 
the line between Medan in Deli and the Padang High- 
lands has been completed. The line was opened to 
traffic on the 16th December. The treasures to be 
unearthed there, draw thither from all sides, crowds 
of young men in such numbers that the labour market 
has been glutted for a long time now. The evil has 
taken such wide dimensions as to call for serious 
warnings against such people coming there at a 
vesture, trusting to good luck befriending them in the 
battle of life. When a situation is secured by some 
stroke of good fortune, the prospect is far from en- 
couraging. Often years elapse before the pursuit of 
the silver Mexicans becomes rewarded with success. 
During that time, these young fellows have to manage 
the best way they can on small salaries amid the 
scum of the Chinese nation. The days have gone by 
when the country was so little known, that the Deli 
Company could only with difficulty get young men 
even by offering liberal conditions. Now, like other 
companies, they indent on Europe for employees where 
any number of them is obtainable. 
The mission of Professor Pekelharing to inquire 
into the causes and phenomena of beri-beri, has had 
one permanent result already. The laboratory he him- 
self started at Batavia will be kept up for the study 
of bacteria. Meanwhile beri-beri continues to rage in 
Acheen, notwithstanding every precautionary measure 
against it. 
TROPICAL PRODUCTS. 
The Amsterdam Cinchona Auctions. — The dates of 
the ten periodical public sales of cinchona bark to be 
held at Amsterdam during the year 1888 have been 
fixed as follows : — January 19th, February 23rd, Maroh 
22ud, May 3rd, June 7th, July 12th, August 30th, Octo- 
ber 4th, November 8th, December 13th. An astonishing 
uncertainty prevailed in London in many quarters 
