Apuil i, 1895.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
68 1 
PLANTING IN BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA : 
THE CLIMATE OF NYASSALAND. 
We are indebted to Mr. J. W. Moir, of 
Lauderdale coffee plantation,— situated at the 
South end of Mount Mlanje, British Central 
Africa — for the appended tables of meteorological 
observations, the" first, we trust, of a prolonged 
series by this gentleman or his Managers. Mr. 
Moir rightly anticipated that the return of Mr. 
Carson to Ceylon would excite considerable in- 
terest among our planting community in British 
Central Africa, and yesterday we published the 
prospectus of the Nyassaland Coffee Company 
Limited, which is being formed here for 
the cultivation of coffee in that region. We 
have no doubt that Mr. Moir, as well as Messis. 
Buchanan, Lloyd, and Brown, can give us a satis- 
factory explanation of the rather pessimistic 
account we published the other day from another 
Ceylon planter who seems to have had rather a 
bad time during his visit to Nyassaland. 
Meantime, we refer to the tables before us and 
mainly with the returns of temperature which shew 
that May to August is the cool period at Lauderdale, 
and November-December the two hottest months. 
But the climate altogether must be delightful 
seeing that the extreme range is from 52 degrees 
in June to 96 degrees in December; while the 
monthly averages only differ from 63i to 191 ; 
and the mean temperature for the eleven mouths 
— August 1893 to June 1894 — works out to a 
little over 6(5.^ degrees — "perfection,'' according to 
the London Spectator, being found at an average 
of 05° Fahrenheit. 
Turning to rainfall, we find a complete year's 
returns give a total of 76 90 inches on 199 days, 
the dry months being August to November and 
sometimes May and June ; while the heavy rains 
(over 53 inches out of the 77) fell in the four 
months January to April. The heaviest monthly 
fall was 1593 inches in January, the heaviest 
on any one day being 3'75 inches on 12th Janu- 
ary which month came in for 7 '17 inches of 
rain between a very dry June and August. Of 
course, it is impossible to place much reliance on 
observations covering only one year ; but we 
think we are safe in judging that the climate 
is likely to prove an admirable one for coffee 
blossoming and ripening, with an average rain- 
fall resembling very much what our Uva coffee 
districts enjoy. It is passible, however, that the 
year under review was a drier one than is usual ; 
for Mr. Moir in a separate note writes: — 
"For the last (> months of 1894 the rainfall was: — 
July 1891 
2 P 74 inches 
Aug. „ 
•27 „ 
Sept. ,, 
3-61 „ 
Oct. „ 
.' , /2J, jjjfc 
Nov. „ 
300 „ 
Dec. „ 
19-85 „ 
(p. enclosed metgl. abstract) Jan. to 
Juno 1894 
29-G8 
50-85 
86-53 
this mouth has already so far exceeded last 
., that the ;!G5 days to date give 104" 18 inches." 
86 
We are still within the limit of Uva's rainfall 
experience which ranges from 79 inches at 
Bat'.ulla to over 100 inches in some parts of 
Haputale. For the present we append Mr. 
Moir's carefully arranged tables in detail which 
afford other interesting meteorological information 
with which we have not dealt : — 
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