8 7 8 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April i, 1882. 
manure and similar mixed nitrogenous and phosphatic 
materials, which must ever form the bulk of economi- 
cal Ceylon coffee manures, can be purchased cheaper 
in the local market of Colombo, and that superphos- 
phate and potash salts should be separately bought 
in the home markets and mixed on arrival with the 
former materials, and thus make a cheap manure. The 
superphosphate can be procured from any of the leading 
manure- manufacturers, while the potash salts, which 
come chiefly from Germany, can be purchased through 
chemical brokers. I hope this will be considered by 
resident proprietors as an independent professional 
opinion. I may add that potash salts being readily 
soluble iu water (as can be easily demonstrated bv 
adding a small quantity to a tumbler of water) should 
be most carefully preserved from exposure to weather 
during transit upcountry. I am certainly not opposed 
to the moderate use of potash salts, but they should 
be applied with other materials as indicated. Some 
friends of mine are now sending out a consignment 
of 50 tons to be mixed on arrival with cake and 
bones. — Believe me, with best wishes for the New 
Year, yours truly, JOHN HUGHES. 
COFFEE LEAF DISEASE : ANOTHER CURE. 
Mr. Oliver W. Jones, Assistant Superintendent, 
Medical School, Dindigul, writes to us underdate 
the 21st February. — The planting community and others 
interested in the life-history of coffee leaf disease 
will doubtless be happy to learn that the treatment 
as advocated by me (not only to check and mitigate 
but to cause a complete eradication of the disease from 
Ceylon and South India) has, after varied months of 
trial, proved a complete success in the hands of the 
Jewish missionaries of this taluq. The Rev. Father 
Labordier, who has considerable experience in coffee 
planting, reports that remedial measures, as detailed 
by me in the columns of the Ceylon Obaerrer of 
the 19th January 1881, were most carefully carried 
out in March last, on an acreage containing some 
30,000 young and diseased plants. The season then 
being dry, the plants were not dusted with the powder, 
but the solution of the medicine was used with 
marked benefit. These plants, he adds, have since 
been kept quite free from the disease, and they 
were with the beginning of the N. E. monsoon 
transplanted to the main plantation, where the disease 
is of a grave form, and, although these plants have 
been for the past five or more mouths in close prox- 
imity to diseased trees, the majority have shewn no 
signs of an attack. This, I must confess, is very 
encouraging, particularly when it is remembered that 
the disease is capable of propagating itself by "a 
process of contiguity. The efficacy of the drug con- 
sists not only in warding off the disease, but it seems 
also to impart a natural stimulus to growth, for the 
plants are looking exceedingly healthy and vigorous. 
This is easily explained, for the chalk (which forms 
the basis of the medicine) in decomposing liberates 
a large proportion of carbonic acid, which is one of 
the chief elements of food for vegetable life. Buoyed 
with the success that has been achieved in the past, 
the mission are now engaged in applying remedial 
measures to a very large area of diseased trees situ- 
ated on the Meenaloor and Seroo Mulai hills. And 
since it is an established fact that the true cause 
of coffee leaf disease in Brazil, and South America, is 
also due to the larva of a little moth, the views 
promulgated by me obtain greater force than they 
have done in the past. If I have strenuously endeav- 
oured, in th" face of adverse criticism, to prove 
by experiment that Mr. D. Morris and others engaged 
in the investigation of leaf disease in Ceylon were 
wrong in supposing that the disease was due to a 
fungus formation, it was not from a spirit of opposi- 
tion, but from a sense of duty to science and the 
planting- world in general. 
P.S. — I shall deem it a lasting favour, if others, who 
have given my treatment a trial, would kindly com- 
municate either directly with me or through the 
medium of your valuable journal. — Madras Times. 
REVIEW OF THE COFFEE TRADE BY 
MESSRS. W. SCHOFFER & Co. OF ROTTER- 
DAM: PRESENT AND FUTURE. 
(From /. A. Rucker <Sj BcncrafCs Price Current.) 
London, Feb. 9th, 1882. 
Coffee. — At this period of the year, several treatises 
are published, in which the position of coffee is 
exhaustively reviewed. These circulars are studied by 
many who are interested in the past, present and 
future .of the berry, and it cannot be denied, but that 
ihey exercise a decided power in guiding public opinion. 
Important as statistics are, it being most danger- 
ous to ignore them, they are by no means a certain guide 
to the future. 
Numerous other influences are at work in every 
market, outside and beyond that of the statistical posi- 
tion, which affect and regulate the action of the pul*e, 
so to speak, of the market. No correct view can be 
formed of the future of any article, unless the condition 
of the pulse be rightly gauged, and prices will fall or 
rise in conformity with its motions, whether they be 
caused by sentiment or by sterling facts. 
The treatise published by Messrs. W. Schoffer & Co., 
of Rotterdam, attracts great attention, not only on ac- 
count of its intrinsic value, but also because itemnnatee 
from a house, whose opinion is always treated with the 
very greatest respect. 
Few, if any, of our readers see this circular, and we 
propose today, for their benefit, to epitomize as briefly 
as possible some portions of it, which are peculiarly 
interesting. Messrs. W. Schoffer & Co. point out, at 
starting, that coffee is in a state of over-production, 
and that according to the statistics of coffee in the 
piincipal markets in Europe (including Genoa) and 
in the United States, there is a surplus stock some- 
where, as compared with last year, of about 700.000 
cwts (35,000 tons). This over-production consists al- 
most entirely of low coffees, chiefly from Rio and Santos, 
a class of coffee, which, at present low rates, consump- 
tion will probably neglect. Notwithstanding the fact 
that enormous quantities of coffee have been on offer 
during the past year, and that the continually falling 
market must, one would have thought, at one time 
or other, have offered temptations t > purchase, impossi- 
ble to resist, the United States have managed to end 
the year 1881 with very moderate stocks. Europe 
unfortunately has not exhibited the same amount of 
foresight. Owing chiefly to the heavy speculation in 
coffee at Havre, European stocks show, as already 
stated, a heavy increase as compared with a y-ar ago. 
Had we been as wise as American buyers, the Brazilians 
would probably have been obliged to keep and store 
an important portion of their enormous crops them- 
selves. As it is. the bulk of the pressure, caused by 
over-production, is at present falling upon Europe. 
A bad harvest in the Brazils would of course revolu- 
tionise the present position. Although this contingency 
may some day occur, at the moment there is not the 
slightest appearance of it. Again, though it is generally 
believed that at present prices planters will not extend 
their cultivated acreages, there is on the oiher hand 
every reason to believe that existing plantations will in 
no way be curtailed, but will be made to produce as much 
as possible. If we take it for granted then that cultiva- 
tion will not be exi ended, the point we must examine is 
whether there be any probability of consumption over- 
