March i, 1882.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
749 
COFFEE PLANTING IN BRAZIL. 
(From Mr. Tytler.) 
Having interviewed Scolt Bl<;<-klnw at his home at 
Dollar, in the Scottish Kingdom of Fife (or Clack- 
mannan), I am to offer you the result for public- 
ation, if you should deem it worthy of your pages. 
The interview leaves no room for question as to 
Brazil being on the eve of an impending thorough 
revolution — political, social, and financial. It is only 
the life of the present popular Emperor which pre- 
vents an outbreak which is inevitable when ho dies. 
The Empire is more than nine-tenths Republican. 
The slavcholdiug class, with their one and a half 
million slaves, are confined to only three of the twenty- 
three provinces, and are the subjects of the most in- 
tense jealousy on the part of all but a minority within 
the oflicials of Government, and h ving exclusive privi- 
leges hitherto dominant, but now fast losing hold. 
As for example, for many years past they, finding 
that the coffee enterprise was the better paying, 
transferred their human "stock" from the northern 
(hitherto producing sugar) provinces of Bahia, Per- 
nambuoo, &c , to the south— to Rio, to Santos, and 
Sa > Paulo— where vast tracts of virgin land having 
rich soil, wholly suitable for coffee, were brought under 
cultivation of the latter produc, resulting in the pro- 
duction of the present enormous export of from six 
to eight milliou cwt. But the jealousy, and interests 
of tho other provinces have caused the enactment of 
a law prohibiting such transfer of the slave popula- 
tion, and there can therefore be no more extension 
of coffee-growing by such labour. These three pro- 
vinces have now to depend only upon the hands they 
at present possess, which are found to be inadequate 
to their requirements. The consequence is that the 
coffee interests, for a year or two back, have been 
trying by tho introduction of free immigrants from 
Europe— German, Portuguese, &c. — to supply the want 
of labour by a system of colonMts, under which famil- 
ies of such immigrants are settled on the estates, 
with about ten acres of coffee allotted to each family 
to cultivate, for wages and allowances, being paid 
as by contract. Thus, one thousand acres would in- 
quire a hundred separate European dwellings with 
all etceteras, and cow pasturage, while the quality 
and working of such a class is most objectionable— 
in fact, impracticable : and this especially so as 
alongside a slavo system. The free indigenous lahour 
— Alriivm, half-breed, or Portuguese— are much of tho 
following stamp. A smart gentleman of colour rides 
up (they all have their riding horses) and seating 
himself in the verandah sends for you, and after 
mutual civilities, with comments on the weather and 
such like, being asked his business, announces that 
he is opeu for engagement, stating terms, including 
keep of horse, c ws, &c, and when informed that he 
is not required, there is handshaking and adioa. 
Not, however, that such men are not in the majority 
of cases excellent and efficient workors, but, as a 
class of labour, too expensive, independent, and pre- 
carious for the growth of coffee. Thcro aro also gangs 
of slaves to bo hired by tho job, or by time, and 
they 1110 the most to be depended upon of the class 
of hired labour. Where employed they have barracks 
wherein they are looked up at night. They receive 
rations of food, and are attended to in sicklies*, and 
are worked under the whip. Their babies and young 
children (now no longer " property " but free born), 
are put into rr.r/o mostly nl fretCO, and tho aged 
and used up, die. The slave population aro lost 
diminishing. No fresh importation has been permitted 
for many years, while laws providing tor em. not- 
ation have been for long in Operation, such as that 
children shall b.< held t > b" horn free. Meiiei there 
are a large increasing Dumber of young people, children 
pf slaves, whoso parents are still under bondage with 
all the contingencies of such 
trary to nature that such a 
tinue long. Another element 
the free Europeans who have 
forming the extensive railway 
of that work, and seeking e 
open to contra 
ind it is con- 
-.gs could con. 
jseiit* ileelf in 
a- navvies for 
W getting out 
and they are 
i roadmaking, 
fencing, ditching &c, but are not the class for coffee 
cultivation, or for settlement to steady periodic em- 
ployment. They gravitate to the towns,' and finally 
disappear. 
Of recent years, the Brazilians, and their Govern- 
ment have foreseen what was inevitable in tho 
future, and have been in throes for some remedy. 
With tho results of West Indian Slave Emancipation 
before them, knowing that the liberated African slave 
will not, when freed, work for hire, but will squat, 
they have been casting about for a supply of labor, 
thinking of Hindustan and Chinese coolies. But apart 
from the expense and difficulties attending their being 
supplied from these countries, they are met by an 
insuperable objection, on the part of the general Brazil- 
ian people, to tho importation into the empire of 
more blacks, and more especially of the yellow 
Mongolian Chinese. On the score, therefore, of labor to 
depend upon for the maintenance of the coffee cul- 
ture, Brazil appears to be in extremity to such an 
extent as to render it certain that, before many years, 
its labor supply must collapse by the operation of 
inevitable causes, and the crisis will probably be pre- 
cipitated by forces already operating, and the climax 
be calamitous — decrease of exports of the grand staple. 
This would be a calamity indeed to such a country, 
the revenues of which is to so large an extent depend- 
ent on coffee, on the export of which alone there 
is a direct duiy of thirteen per cent. Already over- 
taxed, and coffee handicapped, wiih the enormous 
railway and other debts to meet — there is not only 
no margin for imports, but the prospect of railway 
revenue diminishing— Brazil can in no way look forward 
with hope. Cuba, having last year reduced her slavery 
to a system of apprenticeship, after oceans of bloodshed 
and vast waste of treasure ; and America free of the 
foul blot upon humanity at a terrific cost, after a war 
of giants— and England let off with a fine of twenty 
millions and the forfeiture of her valuable West India 
possessions, now, alas, in ruin ; is it possible or prob- 
able that Brazil can avert tho catastrophe or prolong 
its advent ? Wo may look any day for fearful in- 
telligence from that Empire. 
The system of cultivation of coffee in Brazil was 
something as follows. Over tho ridge behind Rio 
Janeiro runs the valley of Parahiba, presenting an 
aspect of steep ridges clad in primitive forest, which 
fell by successive onraids after tho collapse of West 
India coffee had raised the pneo. Cultivation was after 
the fashion we call "native" in Ceylou. Indeed, 
there has never been what we call "cultivation," 
pruning or manuring being deemed Quixotic Tho trees 
ore planted twelvo feet apart, allowed to grow auyhow, 
with any number of stems, the intervening space being 
occupied by niaisc, manioc, bananas, yams, arrow root, 
&c. Crops were (and still are) shaken off tho trees 
when ripe, and the husks swept up and dried anyhow. 
Croptime falls there in the dry season. This enterprise 
succeeded; abundance of the most suitable land ; labour 
found by drafting slaves from the north, and everybody 
anyhow going at it. Extension ovorllowed to the 
south, to the districts, inland from tho seaport of 
Santos, and away up into the province of Sao l'aulo. 
It is hero where tho richest of young coffee life is in 
vigor, much of tho Parahiba and Rio having worn out, 
and been washed out, ami played oat, (as alas is much 
of our old Ceylon !) though still largely swelling tho 
exports of Bio, Bao Paulo is mainly a tableland! an 
undid it iug expanse of prairie aud wooded ridges, tw 0 
