784 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[May 1, 190L 
<4> . 
To the Editor. 
COFFEE IN B. C. AFRICA. 
I. 
Dear Sir, — The cause of diseased beans is in my opin- 
ion not far to seek and may be attributed to tfiree 
particular enemies of the coffee tree viz. — Drought, 
Uorer and Grab. 
DKOUaHT. 
The first of these three is very much to be dreaded 
at lovi' elevations from 1,500 to 2,700 feet altitude ; 
above the latter elevation coffee does not suffer 
visibly so much, but it does in the course of years 
become very visible indeed, and experience has 
shown careful observers that the trees become so 
damaged by the scorcbings of a few dry seasons, 
drying up the very life sap of the trees and mur- 
dering, the whole of the bark, pith, and even 
the wood of the coffee bushes, leaving alone the 
{lungs leaves) brittle dry, cankered and almost sapless 
— which is quite unnatural to a healthy coffee bush 
in its proper element. When the coffee tree gets 
into the condition alluded to above, there is no cure 
for the resulting light chipped, and black beans, 
caused I think by the weakened ttate of the tree, but 
to cut it down, and let a sucker grow up from the 
bottom. By selecting the healthy sucker, which is 
usually the biggest and strongest, a sound crop is 
secured again after 18 months or so. Now to prove 
that the scorching has a lot to do with damaged 
beans, I am quite sure no one will deny the fact 
that young colfee that has not been scorched al- 
ways gives a sound crop, but the older the estate 
is, the more damaged the colfee becomes if the 
seasons have been exceptionally dry till almost 
worthless, unless cut down as I have stated above. 
Cutting down does not always prove a remedy 
for light and damaged beans, especially at the lower 
elevaiion, for I Ivave observed in a very dry year 
that the trees have been burnt right into the ground 
in fine or very light friable soil that has under- 
gone much tillage so that cankered, sickly suckers 
came up, and the only cure for this condition of 
the tree is pull it out, and replant ; and as this 
usually happens in the richest of soils composed 
almost entirely of vegetable humus— the plants 
take root and grow as vigorously as in virgin land. 
At this lower level, about 2,tj00 feet, in dry seasons, 
our coffee suffers much more than it does at and 
around Blantyre, wheie the elevation of most of the 
estates runs from 3,000 feet upwards; not only does the 
sap get drained out of the bushes Dy excessive heat 
but they lose their leaves and the wood dies back. In 
such a year as 1897, coffee 1 year old was so damaged 
that it had to be cut down as it was nearly all black- 
hearted and cankered, and the trees that were left 
(3upposed to be healthy) were so much damaged that 
the maiden crop on those trees had any amount of 
diseased leaves so that it would have been better to 
have cut all down. This is my own experience, and I am 
quite convinced that no amount of moisture put 
into the soil by means of irrigation would save our 
coffee in such a year. What is wanted is moisture in 
the air, which ihis country, being so far from the sea, 
is singularly void of during October and November, 
even in favourable years. 
To pf.ove this fact I only need to mention that a 
number of coffee trees under my bath-room where the 
soil was daily moistured, and by the sides of streams in 
damp and satuated soils, lost their crops, (when 
blossoming to the tune of 10 cwts per acre) and wood 
also. "Vv'heress coffee under a canopy of shade held 
its crop withdut Icsiug leaves or wood, and further 
the coffee under proper shade has never in my ex- 
perience produced black or spotted beans; this I am 
jjre||mre(i to prove any day, (hut is provided the coffee 
has always been healthy and grown under proper 
shade, and not damaged before putting it under dhade. 
What I mean is, healthy plants, not blach hearted, 
planted under a canopy of dhade, lofty, does 
not produce diseased beans in B. C. A. — 
Unfortunately however the older our coffee grows 
(when it ought to be in its very prime, yielding fine 
crops) it gets so rotten that it is hardly worth cul- 
tivating in some localities ; this fact we need no longer 
deny. 
Low topping in green wood just before the dry 
months, usually resorted to to force blossom, is a 
dangerous proceeding in B. C. A. It causes much 
canker on the upper part of the coiiee bushes, and 
forces out too much flowers, more than a 3-year- 
old tree can staud, resulting in much injury to the 
whole bush, impairing its health and vigor for the 
rest of its existence 1 may say; v.'heread if left to 
nature, say, till a -height of 8 feet or mere is attained 
before topping, the tree would not be taxed with 
over-blobsoming and over-bearing before it is able to 
standit. Further the bushes are not so easily scorched 
by the sun aud hot winds when well grown high off 
the ground, and any canker or damage done to ihe 
top of the tree, when young, is hktl} to grow out of it 
or b^ topped off when the tree is ultimately topped 
in matured wood ; at whatever height wind ani 
fertility of soil direct. I dou't tiiink in any part that 
I am acquainted with in B. C. A., that coffee should 
be topped low on account of wind, but I have seen 
estates where the eoil would not support a big tree, 
in fact coffee should not have been planted at all. 
I am not so sanguiue i^ow as 1 v^as some years ago 
that coffee is the permaijeut and remuneiative in- 
vestment that it should be in B. C. A. : doubtless 
good crops of 6 to 8 cwt. per acre have been secured by 
some lucky individual planters, mostly maiden crops; 
and until shade be universaliy adopted in this country, 
I am sure those good crops will be the exception 
instead of the rule. 
As for my own part I regret ever having cleared 
the land to plant an acre of coffee here, and would 
not do so again after the .experience I now possess 
for I am convinced that 
SHADE IS ABSOLUTELY KECESSAKY 
for the successful cultivation of 'our stnple pro- 
duct, cofiee, which let us hope in spite of black beans 
will always remain king. 
If good land could be get at an elevation of from 
3,500 to 4,500 ft. coffee would not get scorched, and 
it would not suffer from borer and grub to the same 
extent as it dues telow that elevation, and although 
we are some 16 degrees south of the line frost ue-d 
not, I think, be feared unless the situation be such 
as to prevent a current of air passing over the coffee 
during the months of June and July (such as in a 
very low sheltered hollow), by the way, our windy 
months in B. C. A. 
When a coffee tree is weakened by over-bearing, 
leaf-disease, borer, or grub attacking the skin or 
roots, or any other cause, the yield will consist of 
a greater or less amount of defective beans, as a 
natural consequence, which the application of manure 
helps to remedy, but no amount of manuring or 
careful husbandry will prevent the alarming amount 
of defective beans found in our coffee. This is proved 
by coffee trees growing amongst manure at my cattle- 
shed door, which were severely scorched and yield 
a heavy crop of worthless coffee. 
Nothing but lofty well-regulated and thin shade 
will ever, in my humble opinion, mioigate or 
remedy the above defects. It is no use ad- 
vocating the Loquat, Pride of India, or other bushy 
small trees, as 1 have seen some writers stupidly 
doing. One has only got to stand under a Loquat and 
afterwards under a large-spreading lofty tree on a 
hot day in November to sea the absurdity of some 
people's ideas of shade, for a shade-loving shrub like 
coffee, which is a surface-feeder if its roots can only 
but exist on the surface, which unfortunately they 
cannot dg during the dry months in exposed laa^ 
