THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [February i, 1889. 
The difficulties of transport alluded to in the above 
extract will soon be a thing of the past. Much has 
already been done in the matter of good metalled 
roads, and a sum of $631,639 has been taken in the 
Estimates of the current year for " Roads and 
Bridges." The further development of the railway 
system is also kept in view, and an instalment of 
25 miles of the opposed Kinta-Teluk Anson line is 
now being taken in hand. 
Aa further bearing on the subject we append the 
following extract from the local "Advertiser" for 
January (which reaches us this afternoon), although 
the information has already appeared in another 
form : — 
The Liberian coffee, being a native of the com- 
paratively low hills of West Tropical Africa, is suited to 
hotter conditions than the Arabian coffee, and it can be 
successfully cultivated in districts quite unsuited to 
the latter. In this lies the chief merit of the new 
coffee. 
As a commercial article Liberian coffee has not hither- 
to proved so valuable as was at one time supposed, and 
the cultivation, though widely distributed, has not 
become general in any part of the world. There are, 
doubtless, good reasons for this. It has been found, 
for instance, that the " cherries " of Liberian coffee do 
not become soft and pulpy when ripe, but remain hard 
and fibrous. Hence it has been found difficult to husk 
the beans, as the machinery found suitable for prepar- 
ing Arabian coffee is Dot applicable to the Liberian 
coffee. Again, the "parchment " skin in the latter is 
tough and woody, and the labour and percentage of 
waste entailed in " cleaning " is increased, while the 
actsal market value is less. Probably, also, in the 
cultivation of Liberian coffee the localities selected for 
plantations have, in many cases, been subject to pro- 
longed droughts, whereas the species evidently prefers 
a warm, moist climate, with abundant rains well dis- 
tributed through the year. 
Should the present high price of coffee be maintained 
it is not unlikely that the cultivation of Liberian coffee 
will prove sufficiently remunerative to warrant further 
attention being paid to it. 
We understand that in Java the Liberian coffee 
cherries are fermented before they are pulped. It is 
claimed that this process enables the coffee to be 
cleaned much more readily, and that the coffee ulti- 
mately produced is brighter in colour and of better 
quality. 
This, if verified, is a fact of some importance to the 
growers of Liberian coffee. 
We have been led to make the foregoing remarks 
and review the present position of Liberian coffee 
owing to a very fine sample of this coffee which 
lately reached us from Malacca, and upon which is 
based the following correspondence : — 
Mr. R. Derby, Forest Department, Malacca, to Royal 
Gardens, Kew. 
Malacca, July 30th 1888. — I am sending you per 
steamship " Ajax " (Ocean Steamship Company) a 
small case containing two samples of Malacca-grown 
Liberian coffee. One sample has the parchment cleaned 
and the other left on. So far, no Malacca coffee 
can be shipped to Europe. I should be glad to learn, 
the value of the samples sent, and whether Malacca 
coffee would be likely to meet with a market at home. 
Messrs. Lewis and Peat to Royal Gardens, Kew. 
5, Mincing Line, E. O , September 15th, 1888.— 
We are favoured with yours of the 12th instant with 
samples of coffee, which we find as follows : — No. 1, 
very good, bold, clean Liberian, well prepared and the 
best we have seen, value about 75s per cwt. ; No. 2, 
in parchment, very hard and apparently overdried, 
colour and quality of boan very inferior to No. 1, 
probably owing to being overdried, value about 30s, 
35s per cwt., if cleaned 55s, 60s per cwt. This coffee 
could be cleaned in London by the process described 
in our letter of the 17th April, but if we doubt if 
a machine that is used for ordinary ooffees such a? 
East Indian or West Indian would clean Buch hard 
coffee as No. 2 sample. We shall bo able to give 
you more information later, as we have just reoeiv e( j 
a consignment of similar coffee in the parchment 
from Jobore, and it will have to be cleaned and sold, 
and we shall have much pleasure in giving you the 
result. 
October 5th, 1888. 
Referring to ours of the 15th ultimo, re Liberian 
parchment coffee, Malacca, we beg to say the London 
cleaning of the tame has not proved nearly so satis- 
factory in the result as the sample sent to us by you 
and cleaned abroad, upon which we reported, as ours 
turned out musty and very rough. We attribute the 
failure to the fact that the coffee was not properly 
dried, and that the parchment of this coarse coffee gets 
very hard and difficult to clean when left long before 
cleaning. We certainly think if such results can be 
attained on the other side, as shown by your sample 
from the Tan Hun Guan estate at Durian Tungal 
[Malacca] it would be folly to send the coffee home 
here in parchment. Our shipment consisted of 110 
bags in the parchment and weighed 122 cwt. The 
out-turn after cleaning gave : — 
35 bags bold which sold at 68s per cwt. 
9 „ medium „ 60s „ 
5 „ peas „ 70s „ 
2 „ triage „ 45s „ 
The loss in weight was 34 cent, which we consider 
excessive. 
Lewis & Peat. 
The large per-centage which the parchment of 
Liberian coffee bears to the clean beans, a fact which 
we have already noted, is fully borne out in the above 
trial. 
4 
CEYLON TJPCOUNTRY PLANTING REPORT : 
THE SATISFACTORY DIVIDEND OP THE YATIYANT0TA TEA 
COMPANY INDICATIVE OF THE SUCCESS OF THE TEA 
INDUSTRY — THE ENTERPRISING V. A.'s — NEWS OF 
RUBBER — PEPPER AN ADMIRABLE AUXILIARY FOR SHADE 
—THE FORTHCOMING MANUAL ON THE SPICES — TAL- 
GASWELA TEA COMPANY— FEEDING TO PRIESTS — TRY- 
ING WEATHER AND SICKNESS AMONGST COOLIES IN 
CONSEQUENCE. 
28th Jan. 1889. 
The dividend which the Yatiyantota Tea Com- 
pany intends to pay is very fine, and is the most 
hopeful thing in regard to our rising industry that 
we have heard of for a long time. The Company 
has all along been recognized as one owned and 
"run" by V. A.'s principally; and it has been 
felt that if the accumulated wisdom of these ex- 
alted souls, — whose presence and company like angels' 
visits we enjoy only for a short space at a time ; but 
during that time, what words of wisdom drop from 
their lips — if they could make tea pay, the founda- 
tions of the enterprise must be of the broadest 
and the deepest. I am ashamed to confess it, but 
there was certainly a feeling in the air, that 
when the V. A.'s went in on their own account 
to grow tea, an awful catastrophe was anticipated. 
But now that they have come out of it so well, 
whether by luck or good guiding will, I fear, be a 
divided opinion, we can all rejoice and look forward 
at the very least for a V. A.'s dividend of 22 %. And 
yet there are some mean cantankerous souls about, 
who seem to think that we will have to be content 
with a great deal less. This idea I unhesitatingly 
classify as preposterous, and not likely to have any 
kind of general support from the ruck of planters. 
Our esprit de corps demands this : not up to the 
V. A.'s ! Is there a man amongst us who would 
think so meanly of himself ? 
Now that the V. A.'s have shown what their stuff 
really is — earning 22 per cent of a dividend to " their 
own cheek " — the proprietors of the estates they 
visit will be looking for the same anyhow ; 
and if not, then why not ? That should be rather 
an appalling thought for our fortunate friends ; 
