June i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL 
COFFEE LEAF DISEASE. 
I told you iu my last letter that I hoped to receive 
through the kindness of a friend Dr. Cooke's opinion 
upon Mr. Marshall Ward's last report on his investi- 
gation into ilemeleia vaslatrix, and I have this week 
been favoured with a letter written by that gentle- 
man upon the subject which I am permitted to ex- 
tract from. Dr. Cooke's high reputation as a botanist 
will give weight to the opinion he expresses, and its 
favourable character will no doubt be satisfactory to 
Mr. Ward, who, I hope, will give us the opportunity 
of reply on the points as to which Dr. Cooke is anxi- 
ous to obtained further information The following 
is the substance of Dr. Cooke's letter to my friend : — 
"I have read Mr. Ward's second report, as I read 
also his first one, with considerable pleasure and in- 
terest. I consider that the. work he has done is, thus 
far, satisfactory, and I follow it with the more in- 
terest, because it seems iu a fair way ofj proving, 
what I at the first strongly believed, but had to 
suspend on account of conflicting evidence, viz. — 
that the Remikia was related to the Uredinea, a 
belief in which I have never completely lost faith — even 
when the evidence seemed the strongest in favour 
of its belonging to the Mucosini. I do not know 
Mr. Marshall Ward personally, but I should be glad 
to learn from him, how he interprets certain of the 
phenomena recorded by Abbay and Morris, especially 
as to spores being contained within the large papill- 
ate spores of the Hemileia. I find another species 
of Hemileia at the Cape of Good Hope, with the 
smooth spores as well as the rough ones, which I 
have figured in Grevillea and called cysts. I should 
like to know if any of the brown spots, with black 
pin points on them — tear any resemblance to a 
Seploria— and what i8 the nature of the black pin spots. 
I should always be glad to hear from him as he 
Croceeds, as well as see his reports — as I have also 
een investigating, as well as I can at such a distance 
from the coffeo disease of Venezuela and Porto Rico 
— which is, apparently, a different thing altogether." 
I trust that this opinion of Dr. Cooke, and the 
queries he has started, may assist in the correctness 
of conclusions at which Mr. Ward may arrive. — Our 
London Cor. 
COFFEE PLANTING &c, IN NATAL. 
The following extracts from letters from a former 
Ceylon planter to a friend in the Island have been 
placed at our disposal. In one letter the writer says : — 
" My chief object in going to the low-country 
was to see the coffee and sugar estates, and to see 
how they cultivated them. Sugar is, as of course you 
know, the chief export from Durban, and this flourishes, 
but the present season has been so dry that it is 
feared that the crop will not be a paying one. The 
estates, as a rule, are not large, varying from 150 
to 300 acres in extent (some are as large as (500) with 
a large reserve of bush. Mills are not erected on 
all estates, but only on a few, so that the planters 
only have to look after their canes, which they send 
when ripe to the mill nearest them to be crushed, 
the cruder taking a portion of the sugar in pay- 
ment for crushing. I went over one of the largest mills 
and was very much interested in what I saw, but 
it is fearfully hard work on Europeans to have to 
stand for hours in the heat of the day in the boil- 
iug-house. Nearly all the labour on the estates I 
visited is cooly, who have an; awfully easy time of 
it and are perfect rajahs in their way. Tlie men 
commence work at sun-rise and knock off in the 
middle of the day for food (which appears to me 
absurd) and return to work until sunset. The women 
very Beklom work, and seem to be quite agreeable to 
AGRICULTURIST. 17 
remain idle, as the absurd Government regulations 
for coolies compel superintendents to supply the 
wives of the men with rations whether they work 
or not. The rations which Government requires to 
be given to coolies consist of 10 lb. rice a week and 
in addition to this the estate has to supply them 
with ghee, 1 lb. per month, and also fish when ob- 
tainable. If you stop any of these rations they go 
to court and the poor cooly gets all his own way. 
I saw very little coffee, but what I did see seemed 
to me to be doing very well, but this was partially 
abandoned although it had a very fair crop upon it. 
The bean is much smaller and very irregular. The 
curing is done very badly and the light and every- 
thing mixed up together. I went to the mills at 
Amgeni, where most of the coffee is cured, but 
even there I was surprised at the slovenly way in 
which everything was done. I saw some coffee on 
a barbaeue before it was milled, and donkejs were 
promenading about on it, so you may judge for your- 
self how things are done. For all this and in spite of 
the grub which I hear kills the trees, I firmly be- 
believe from what I have seeu that with care and 
occasional manuring that coffee might be made to 
pay here. Dry seasons are against it certainly, and 
that is all, I fancy. I am leaving this for the coast 
again as soon as I can get a transport wagon to take 
my things down, as I am convined that this is not 
the place for me ; I mean up hcere. Cattle, horses 
and sheep are dying in this district from cold and 
poverty, and as instances of this, one farmer lost 100 
calves from lung sickness and another about 500 
sheep from cold ; this is not very encouraging." 
A second letter is written from Durban, Natal, on 
22nd November 1880. The writer says :— 
"This mail I forward a paper to you, in which 
it shews that although coffee has to a certain extent 
been abandoned here, yet there is a chance of its 
being revived again. People here know next to 
nothing about it and do not seem to take any trouble, 
and yet expect the tree to do well without going 
in for cultivation. Their great idea seems to be to 
get large crops without any outlay, and if they do 
not get this in about four or five years time, they 
abandon the estates. Another drawback they say 
they have is the borer. As yet I have not seen any 
trees so affected, but surely tt ere must be some 
remedy for this ; and they also complain of high 
winds, but up to the present time I have not felt 
any wind nearly equal in force to that I experienced 
on when the young clearing was blown on its 
broadside, trees, stakes, and every thing else. They 
know nothing of the numerous pests aud drawbacks 
which you have to contend with in Ceylon or they 
would not cry out as they do. Natal, I fancy, is a 
very good place for coffee, as crop ripens during the. 
dry season, aud the way I propose to go in for it 
here is to plant up in small acreages at a time, 
and that in connection with other things which give 
a good and quick return, such as maize, potatoes, 
and vegetables generally. They tell me that the only 
way to render the cultivation of coffee profitable in 
Natal is to renew stem, branch, and occasionally the 
tree, after it has borne its fourth crop. This to 
Ceylon planters would seem an extraordinary pro- 
ceeding and I cannot understand it at all. However, 
as your humble servant hopes to be one of the com- 
mission spoken of in the paper I shall endeavour to 
find out during the tour which I suppose will bo 
taken through the country, something mure definit 1 
on this subject. The other day I visited a farm 
near Pietermaritzburg, for the purpose of looking a' 
some coffee, and although the trees arc looking like 
abandoned coffee, yet they looked wonderfully health] 
a9 far as the foliage was concerned ; aud this after 
they had borne a very good crop, but a large pro 
portion of this was light. This I have often seen 
