74S 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [March r, 1882. 
beings. Has not a law been passed freeing all children 
born of slave mothers since 1872? Was not an emancip- 
ation fund formed to free so many slaves every year ; 
and was there not a dying-out process going on by 
which the number of those already slaves would be 
gradually diminished? and we all concluded that in ten 
years slavery would be nowhere. This has proved to 
be mere matter of opinion. The institution nourishes 
as grandly as ever it did. Children are being valued 
as property separate from their parents. The larger 
part of the emancipation fund has not been spent in 
freeing slaves, and the official returns of the number 
of slaves in the whole empire are still quoted about 
1,500,000 or the same as ten years ago. 
I was to have given you an account of the reasons 
for the gradual increase of the coffee exports from 
Brazil, but, as usual, I have been two long in com- 
mencing. 
Dollar, Scotland, 22nd Dec. 1881. 
My dear Sirs, — As mentioned in my last, it was 
a natural error for us all to fall into — the imagining that 
the Slave Law of 28th September 1871 had given a 
fatal blow to the coffee enterprize in Brazil. Previous 
to that date, the planters had been feeling the effects 
of the stoppage of the slave trade, and labourers for 
coffee, cane, and cotton plantations had become scarce. 
While the proposed law was being discussed, previous 
to its passing, the planters themselves believed they 
were going head-long to ruin. They sanctioned the 
law, because the civilized world was against them. The 
Emperor had ordered it, and their most enlightened 
sta esmen were in favour of it. Besides, the first pro- 
position, which was to decree unconditional emancipation 
to all slaves in the year 1900, was not insisted on. 
Although the law of September 1871 left all to remain 
in a state of slavery, who were born slaves before 1871, 
until their death, the planters still believed the country 
had made a great sacrifice; and like us, they thought the 
cultivation of coffee could not be extended. Pour years 
after, the great crop of 1875 was believed to be quite 
exceptional, and was owing to there having been small 
crops for the three previous years, 1872, 1873 and 1874, 
and the trees having been loaded with young wood, when 
the favourable blossoming season of 1874 came round. The 
bad state in which the 1875 crops reached the 
market only fun her convinced us of tbe impossibility 
of the Brazilians being able to pick and send to the 
seaports larger crops than the maximum 4,000,000 cwts. 
Let us see what the figures show, as regards exports 
from Rio and Santos alone, leaving out Bahia and 
Ceara, for, as I mentioned in one ofmyletteis to you, 
this last-mentioned place must be included in all cal- 
culations as regards the Coffee Supply of the World : — 
For the ten years ending 
June 1866 Rio and Santos 
gave an average of .. 3,500,000 cwts. annum. 
Por ten years endmg 1876 ... 4,000,000 ,, ,, 
For last five years ending 
June 1881 in round num- 
bers ... ... 5,000,000 ,, ,, 
[N.B. — There are 17 Brazilian coffee bags to a ton.] 
It is not expected that the production will be less 
than this last figure for some time, aud it seems to be 
picked, cured, and sent to seaport, much more easily 
than the 3,500,000 cwt. a year were ; and, moreover, 
the quality of the crops, owing to improvements in 
machinery, and better care being taken of them as 
regards curing and preparing, is much superior to 
what it was in former years. 
Now what are the causes which have brought about 
this increased prodution ? 
/''irnt come railways. — The first railways were opened 
in 1866-67- About that time the Don Pedro II. rail- 
way was opened into the interior of the province of 
Rio de Janeiro. Certainly the terminus was a long 
way from many of the finest coffee-producing districts: 
still it wasa help, and a beginning in that way of 
ransporting produce, and showed the leading men 
of the country the advantage of continuing the system 
futher, until, by the end of last year, tbe railways — 
trunk and branches included — bringing produce to the 
city of Rio de Janeiro have a total length of 650 miles. 
In 1867 a railway had been opened from the town 
of Santos to the town of Sao Paulo. This was only 45 
miles from the coast, and still 80 miles from the 
nearest coffee districts of the province of Sao Paulo. 
By 1870 these districts had, however, been reached: and, 
year by year, after this steady progress in railway ex- 
tension hud been made,until the railways in the province 
of Sao Paulo, counted 750 miles at the end of last year; 
and over a hundred more are in construction and 
will be opened by end of this year, or early in next 
year. Although the transport by rail is very costly in 
Brazil — about a shilling per ton per mile — still it 
can be depended on as a quick and safe means; 
and the farther inland the railways go there is the 
less dependence on the muleteer and bullock cartman, 
for, in former times, coffee transport was at a stand- 
still during the rainy months — December till April 
following. During the making of the railways, the 
planters' labor-market was not affected, as the rail- 
way labourers were Portuguese, Italians, and Spani- 
ards — a class of men brought out from Europe for 
this purpose, and who have no taste for agricultural 
pursuits. On the other hand, the opening of railway 
threw those who had found occupation as muleteers 
and bullock-drivers on to work on the coffee estates. 
The opening-up of the country in this way was 
the means of sending men into the interior as pur- 
chasers of land, who would not have thought of 
attempting a long journey on horseback. People 
with capital flocked from the large towns and 
from other provinces of the Empire. Agriculture has 
an attraction for the retired tradesman and the sugar- 
cane and cotton planter looks on coffee-planting as 
a superior occupation to Lis. Besides the sugar 
planters in Mauritius and British Guiana could pro- 
duce a better article and could make sugar pay at a 
price that left nothing for the unskilled Brazilian 
planter. Cotton, which, during the American war, and 
for some years after, paid the Brazilian planter well 
fell to such a price, after the freed American negroe 
hegan to work, that the Brazilian planter, after paying 
13 per cent of duty on it, found the cultivation of 
cotton gave little return for the capital lying on his 
slaves. These all turned their attention to coffee- 
planting. A great many people in the interior of 
the other provinces, who owned slaves, but produced 
very few articles for export, owing to their distance 
from the seaport, came and bought land near the 
railways. They found they could grow corn and 
bran sufficient to feed their negroes, and sell enough 
fat pork to buy clothes lor them or for that, they 
could still grow a small patch of cotton, make the 
children prepare it for spinning, the old women spin 
it, and the men take their turn at the loom at night 
as usual, and. thus be independent of buying anything; 
and then the price got for the coffee in Santos was 
found money to them. This last operation you will 
think overdrawn, but I have had Brazilians treating 
several thousands of coffee trees for me with slaves 
of their own do this. I gave them land, in a place 
not suited for coffee, to grow whatever they liked, and, 
from what grew on that piece of ground, they would 
keep their whole household and the yearly payment 
for treating the coffee trees was clear profit. 
I shall return to this subject next mail day, m an- I 
while I find it is time to send this to post. With ; 
kind regards, yours very truly, 
A. SCOTT BLACKLAW. 
