592 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[March i, 1898. 
ait down under the coffee trees ; then, why not have 
them in their lines, where they can also get a good 
meal and go out fresh in the cool of the evening. 
I positively state now that I have proved that I can 
get 30 per cent more out of my labour in this way ; 
and I ask any superintendent whether he feels very 
fit to look after his work in a burning sun after a 
a heavy meal and ‘“perhaps” a bottle of beer. He wants 
two hours ; rest at least, and so does any other man, 
and, what is more, most of them take it. 
This question was brought before the S. P. A. a 
few days ag'\ and it required the casting vote of the 
Chairman to decide it against the motion for work- 
ing morning and evenirg. Many men who then voted 
against it stated that they knew it was the best thing 
to do. One man said his lines were too far away 
for the men to go home this lines should be near his 
store, when men can go home after measuring their 
first box oi 2>aJam). He was a cricketer. Another man 
said rain came on in the evening, therefore he would 
vote e gainst it. He was a golfer. Another said his 
coolies would not turn out again. He was a tennis 
player, and so a good motion was lost, a motion that 
would save the proprietors of estates 30 per cent on 
the labour expenditure and half their bill for doctors 
and medicine. 
In the face of the labour difficulty individual 
estates cannot do it ; but if two thirds of the estates 
agreed to do it, it could be done, and some of the others 
might be made to do it. Once a week is quite enough 
for a man to get away to his club and his golf, and 
any man who has not the interest of the estate at 
heart enough to make him walk round it in the even- 
ings, whether his coolies are working or not, is not 
the man I used to know in Ceylon. 
THE CURING OF LIBERIAN COFFEE, 
The next great difficulty we have to face is the 
bad state our coffee arrives in the London market. 
I could not believe that the samples I saw were 
Straits Liberian coffee; and I am positive that the 
cause was mixing a lot of coffee from different estates 
together, and sending it home in sacks instead of in 
barrels. No matter how good and well-dried a lot of, 
say, 50 tons may be, if it is mixed with even 10 tons 
of imperfectly dried coffee, mildew will set in and 
spoil the lot before it reaches the London market; 
and this would happen even were it in barrels, so 
that uniform dryness must be insisted on. 
Sidng of This is one of the great objec- 
tions to our coffee, as it cannot be evenly roasted 
unless it is of equal size. This seems a very easy 
matter to settle, but it must be done on a large 
scale and most estates are so small that they have 
not a chance of being able to do it on their own 
estates. 
A CENTRAL CURING ESTABLISHMENT. 
The remedy for these two predominating evils is 
a curing establishment in Klang. My own idea is 
an establishment owned by the planters of Selangor 
and worked by a directorate appointed by the S. P. A. 
At first I thought that Kwala Klang was the best 
place, hut I have changed my mind on that ques- 
tion, on account of the difficulty of getting women 
and children at the Kwala, when they are very 
plentiful in and about the present town of Klang. 
If this establishment is formed in Klang— 
whether it be by the Planters or by private enter- 
prise — it must be on a large scale, if it gets ^ of 
the support of the acreage of coffee now planted in this 
State. The mill will make large profits, as they will 
get high prices for their coffee in London, and buy 
at the ruling price of the market here. 
They will be able to dry their coffee to a uniform 
dryness, size their coffee to different sizes, and send 
each sort to the most suitable market for it, and 
pack all in barrels or tea boxes instea.d of in bags. 
^ “Is Liberian Coffee any good, and v,'ill it ever bring 
a fair price in the American and London markets, 
and what is the reason that it is at such a low price 
in comparison to other coffees?” 
The low price in compaiison to other coffees is the 
most serious question of all for other countries are 
getting a good paying price, ai.u will go on increasing 
their production, whereas if we were ail at a low price, 
it would be only the waiting for the survival of the 
fittest to get a good price again. 
As to whether Liberian coffee is any good or not, 
I must say I trust to ray own palate, and to the 
palates of thousands who have declared it to be as 
good as any other coffee ; and I beleive that, if we can 
only produce it for sale in the London market as 
it leaves here, it will fetch a price in proportion to 
what it is worth. I once sent a tin of Johore Li- 
berian Coffee to Britain, and most of the people 
in our own country have tasted it and pronounced 
it excellent. I saw and drank some of that same 
coflee at home two years afterwards, and it looked as 
glossy and as sound as the day it left the store, and 
tasted equally as well as it looked — very different to 
the dull mouldy-looking, half-decayed coffee I saw 
with London merchants as samples of Straits Libe- 
rian. I sent that sample home in a .Java sugar tin 
soldered down. 
THE CRISIS. 
I have hopes that the best estates will pull through 
this crisis: but I should not like to raise the 
hopes of men in this Peninsula who have poor bad 
estates, some of them estates that I reported on 
years ago before coffee ever reached §35 and recom- 
mended the abandonment of. 
Those very estates kept on until coffee reached 
§47, and even then they did not pay. The owners 
of those estates ought to know what to do now, for 
coffee is not likely to reach §47 again. I only wish 
it would. 
The fact of it is that any estate that requires 
manure to produce an average of 3J piculs per 
acre all over should be abandoned, unless the land 
is good for other products such as Rubber ; but nine 
tenth of them are not tit to plant Para Rubber in, and 
more than half of them are good for nothing. 
It is not until coffee comes into bearing that the 
real brains of a manager are tested. You often 
hear a man say on passing an estate : this is a 
fine little estate, and it is well managed, never thinking 
for one moment w'hat it cost. Any imbecile can open 
up a small estate if he spends enough money on it ; 
the good man is the one who can open up a place as 
well as it can be done, and at as small a cost as any 
other man can do it. I know of estates being opened 
up in this State at such a cost that,' if coffee were to 
go to $40 per picul and remain there, they would 
never pay. As a rule, the unfortunate men w'ho supply 
the money do not question the acreage opened up and 
the cost of it. If they did it would be belter for them- 
selves and a man might have a chance of making a cooly 
give a day’s work for a day's pay. 
For men who have good rich young estates it is the 
time to make all improvements possible, above all things 
to get a day’s work for a day's pay and to try to send a 
better sample to the European market. 
Nil Disperandum. 
PREPARATION OF TANNIN EXTRACTS. 
Under the name of tannin or tannic acid are included 
a number of different but closely allied substances 
widely distributed throughout the vegetable kingdom, 
which all agree in this one particular that they are 
greedily absorbed by the raw hide of animals, forming 
with it leather. They are contained in abundance 
in galls ; in certain fruit, such as that of Terminalia 
Chchtda, T. Citrina, T. Bdlerica. Phyllanthus Emhlica, 
etc. ; in the leaves of some trees, such as Sumach. 
and Anoqeissus lati folia; in the wood of most trees 
possessing a durable heart-wood, such as oaks, chest- 
nuts, Acacias, sal, etc. ; and last, but not least, in 
the bark of many trees and bushes, such as oaks, 
babul, sal, Tenninalia tomemtosa, Soi/mida fehrifuga, 
spruce, Finns longifolia, Cassia auriculata, etc. 
Galls, fruit and leaves are easily exportable in a 
dry condition, but wood and bark are both bulky 
articles to transport over long distances. Moreover, 
in Europe the old system of tanning by stratifying 
hides alternately with layers of coarsely ground 
