THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [May i, ibby. 
may be found men doing a profitable business in 
cups of hoi, coffee, cocoa or tea outside the 
factory and foundry gates when the workpeople 
are out for meals* or are leaving work for a long 
trudge home. The men engaged in this work have 
rather handsomely got up big barrow-shaped 
carts and the steaming cans are resplendently 
bright and adorned with brass, each vendor vying 
with his fellow caterer in the business in making 
his display as attractive as possible. In some 
such way the millions of the toiling poor of France, 
Belgium and other countries might be taught to 
appreciate a beverage they have probably never 
yet tasted in its purity, so it is all nonsense to 
say they don't like it. Certainly our nearest 
neighbours require attention equally with our own 
race in countries far distant. The difficulty in 
getting people to take to tea who have never 
tasted it, may not be so great as getting others to 
change the tea they have been accustomed — •o'} 
C. OP W. 
COFFEE— TEA. — AND STRONG DRINK. 
Colombo, 6th April 1889. 
Sir, — I extract from the Ceylon Observer, 21st 
March 1889, giving S. Rucker & Co.'s Circular of 28th 
Feb. 1889, with statistics re coffee : — " The world's 
consumption of the berry for 1888-89 is estimaetd 
at 671,500 tons or 1,504,160,000 lb." The average 
selling price per lb. of the world's production of 
coffee today is probably about 84s per cwt., or say 
9d per lb. The average selling price per lb. of 
the world's production of tea today is probably 
just about the same, say 9d per lb. But the 
world's estimated consumption of TEA for 1888-89, 
(rapid as the increase has lately been) is estimated 
at only 1,357,500,000 lb* 
So that the disparity between the world's con- 
sumption of coffee and of tea today is still some- 
thing enormous ; I imagine much more so than 
most British tea growers and others think, and 
if so the above figures may assist to open their eyes I 
Of course, a few years hence we may see 
vast reductions in the world's annual consump- 
tion of coffee, owing to coffee disease spreading, 
but we ought not to reckon on this. Messrs. S. 
Rucker & Co., I see, put down their probable re- 
duction from lessened crops of coffee for 1889-90, 
at no less than 100,700 tons or 225,568,000 1b. 
These latter figures should cause a slight access 
of joy in the desponding hearts of British tea 
growers, but they must not relax their efforts to 
spread throughout the whole world a taste for their 
pure teas. There is without the shadow of a 
doubt, ample room for all the tea, coffee and cocoa 
the world can produce, for the population of the 
world is ever increasing at a greater speed than the 
production of these, soon to become universally 
indulged in necessities, not luxuries. The following 
extract, too, is calculated to put the spurs on to both 
tea planters and parsons ! — Yours, C. T. W. 
LAST YEAR'S NATIONAL DRINK BILL. 
The following noval calculations have been made by 
Mr. John Cook, District Secretary of the West Cum- 
berland District Lodge of Good Templars, for the 
purpose of enabling the public to gain a better cou- 
ceptiou of the large amount expended eiich year in 
drink. Last year's drink bill, as taken from Parlia- 
mentary returns, was .£124, (>U,439. This amount would 
give £'i 7s per head to the estimated population of 
the natioD ; and £16' 15s for each average family. Its 
weight in sovereigns would be 976 tons, while, it 
would cover h space of 628 acres with sovereigns (laid 
edge tn edge. If the coins were placod lace to face 
they would reach 115 J miles, or mak e a golden ojord 
• bee Ferguson's Ceylon Handbook and Directory. 
reaching from Carlisle to Liverpool or Manchester. 
Placed ed-e to edge they would extend a distauee 
of 1,720 miles. To count these coins at one sov- 
ereign per second would take four years less a 
fortnight. For each letter in the Bible the amount 
last year expended in liquor is set down at £34 18s 9d. 
COCONUT AND COFFEE LEAF-DISEASE. 
Veyangoda, 7th April 1889. 
Dear Sir, — In your foot-note to my letter you state 
that as the "colt'ee leaf fungus was never known in 
connection with coffee anywhere the world over 
either to scientists or planters before it appeared iu 
Madulsima in 1869," therefore it makes all the differ- 
ence between it and the coconut leaf-disease. You 
are right when you state that the fuDgus was unknown 
to scientists before 1869. For on its making its appear- 
ance in Madulsima in a virulent form Dr. Thwaite's 
atteutiou was called to it, and he not being able to 
identify it, referred the fungus to Messrs. Berkeley 
and Broom who found it quite a new fungus and not 
included in the list of " more than a thousand species 
of fungi " from Ceylon. But the fact that hemileia- 
vastatriz was unknown to scientists is not conclu- 
sive proof that it did not attack coffee before 1869. 
All it proves is that it was not noticed before then 
by scientists- 
You are in error when you state that the fungus 
was unknown to planters as well, before 1869. Planters 
have borne testimony in your columns that they were 
acquainted with it for many years before it attracted 
attention. Amongst other Mr. Halliley, the famous 
advocate of weeds, wrote that he and his coolies came 
out of the coffee years before covered with yellow dust 
of which nothing was thought, as it did no harm then. 
In jour Directory for 1873 in page 200 Mr. Nietner 
says he knew the disease for 15 or 20 years, but he did 
not include it in the list of his enemies of the coffee 
tree as it did uo material harm till recently. So that 
I am right that coffee leaf -disease like the coconut leaf- 
disease mas in existence long before it attracted atten- 
tion. 
Now that Mr. Potter has taken specimens of the af- 
fected leaves to be submitted to Mr. Marshall Ward we 
may look out for an authoritative opinion as to what 
the disease really is. — Truly yours, B. 
[B. quotes planting opinions given in 1873, which 
were afterwards set aside as untenable: Hemileia 
vastatrix existed in the jungles of Ceylon before 
1869, but never touched cultivated coffee ; so decided 
both Thwaites and Marshall Ward, and even Nietner 
was deceived in supposing that what he had seen on 
coffee before was the same fungus. Of course this fact 
can be used the other way in reference to B's 
coconut trouble, but we took him at his own word. 
Meantime it is satisfactory to know that Marshall 
Ward is to have specimens of the coconut leaf with 
the alleged fungus or discoloration laid before him. — Ed.] 
COFFEE -TEA— AND STRONG DRINK. 
April 10th, 1889. 
Sie, — " The world's consumption of tea versus 
coffee ? " The figures for tea you have introduced in 
my letter of last evening have been inserted by you 
without due reflection ; they are altogether mis- 
leading, and have, in fact, destroyed altogether 
the point I sought, to make, viz. the great disparity 
between the two staples. This should be corrected at 
once, of course. So take S. Rucker & Co.'s lines show- 
ing how they arrived at their figures for the 
world's consumption of coffee for 1888-1889, and 
place against them in parallel lines the figures for 
the so-called world's consumption of tea. If you 
do this then the immense disparity will be clearly 
seen. S. Rucker & Co.'s figures for coffee have 
reference, of course, only to the consumption going 
on in countries importing coffee and do not in- 
clude imaginary figures representing assumed con- 
sumption in the countries producing coffee- not 
being on parallel lines with S. Ruoker's for coffee. 
Kindly correct and oblige, C, T. W. 
