THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[/PRtL 1. » 89 ?. 
f yS 
not seem to be much. After a long dry crop season 
the first rains send out flowers all over; dry secon- 
daries, primaries, and even stems, send out their 
flower buds. The same rule applies in Brazil as in 
Ceylon — an old coffee tree say above ten years will not 
give a heavy crop twice in succession. In the State 
of Sao Paulo, should the old trees hear little any 
one year, the regular or increase of quantity is made 
up by many young clearings coming into bearing. 
A great deal of energy and money have been spent in 
trying the Ceylon mode of curi g in Brazil. If 
Brazilian coffee were amongst the sixties, instead of 
Santos good average selling from twenty-seven to 
thirty-two shillings per cwt. {vide Knowles and 
Foster’s report, 16th Dec. 1897) I believe from fifteen 
to twenty shillings per cwt. more could be got for it 
and this would go a long way to cover the extra 
expense in gathering the fresh cherry. The unsuit- 
ableness of the labour system, and partly the thinness 
of the cherry skin, with a very small layer of 
saccharine matter adhering to it, have hitherto been 
objections. The first can be remedied by an increased 
supply of cheaper labour, and with exerting patience 
in teaching the proper mode of picking, and the 
second by improving the Ceylon Coffee Pulper to 
suit such thin-skinned cherry. 
In the time of Slavery -before 1888— a great deal 
of Coffee in the Province of Rio de Janeiro was sold 
as “ washed " coffee. This had undergone the pulping 
or what was more appropriately called here 
“ dispulping ” — process, and was washed and dried in 
the parchiuent. It always sold much higher than 
the other. To increase the saccharine matter in the 
cherry it was always kept in water cisterns for twelve 
hours before J/.cpulping, 
Coi'FEE Begins ro Ripen 
in the State of Sao Paulo, end of March, and the 
first picking of fresh cherry would take place begin- 
ning of April. This is just the time the colonist, 
his wife, and children are securing their crops of rice, 
beans, Indian corn, potatoes, &c., for the year’s 
consumption. There would be small straggling 
pickings until July, when the larger part of the crop 
ripens, and there would be small pickings after that 
until middle of September. The usual form of 
colonists’ contract would not admit of this. By the 
f resent system the colonist commences picking in 
une, or the day after Sao Joao (St. John)— which 
is 24th of June— the trees are gone over only once, 
in the manner above described, and generally all is 
secured before the September rains set in. The good 
colonist is anxious to get over the crop picking 
quickly, for he has his ground to prepare for planting , 
corn, beans, rice and potatoes, before these same 
rains cease. The coffee tree has thus a rest before 
the principal blossoming time— the middle of October. 
The Picking 
difficulty could be overcome by the introduction of 
Japanese labour. The Brazilian Government have a 
treaty with that of Japan, which allows these labourers 
to be imported. The Japan .Em 'gration Com- 
pany,” composed of bankers, capital' ts and merchants 
in Japan, have appointed as tbei ■ agents in Bi- zil 
Messrs. A. Piox’ita A Co., ship-brokers and G ivem- 
ment contractors for European Immigrants, having 
offices in Kio de Janeiro and other ports. These 
have lately issued a prospectus showing the advantages 
of such immigration and the rates of pay and 
passage-money which the planter will have to contract 
for. If they may not be cheaper than European 
colonists — the Government having hitherto paid 
passages and all expenses of the latter up to colloca- 
tion on the planiatiori — they will be more tractable 
as they work in gangs, and their work can be 
depended on for the time of their engagement. Here 
is what thev will cost (he planter, and it must be 
paid in gold or its equivalent: — 
Passage money, £14 eacli .. . . £ 14 
Wages, 17 dollar i a month, go'.d, 3 years . . 126 
Return passage, should he elect to return .. 10 
or £50 a year. They feed and clothe themselves, 
but are allowed house, water and firewood. 
The contract is for three years, each immigrant is 
submitted to a medical examination before leaving 
Japan and certificate of health given. If on arrival 
he is incapable of working the advance given by 
the planter is repaid. If he inns away during the 
time of contract, part of the passage money will 
be repaid in proportion to the time he has worked. 
If the immigrant elects to remain in the country the 
planter has not to pay the £10 for return passage. 
The advantages are that the planter can be able to 
plant other things besides coffee, that will help to pay 
for the extra wages the Japanese labourer requires. 
The ground given to 
European Colonists. 
to plant on, is low-lying ground subject to 
frost in the cold months, and not suitable for 
coffee planting, although it could grow all the 
cereals the colonist requires to plant, and these same 
lands could be utilised to produce by .Japanese labour 
not only these cereals for which there is a good market 
but sugar cane and cotton. The first cost of estab- 
lishing colonist labour, comes very heavy on the 
planter. The Government tries to relieve it by paying 
the passage and all expenses of the colonist family 
up to the time of collocation on the estates. The 
recruiting in Europe and steamer passage being ar- 
ranged by contract with Italian shipping agen- 
cies, the colonist arrives at the Government Depot 
free to contract himself as he chooses. This 
certainly saves the planter a large sum. Those 
planters who struggled for the first ten or fifteen years 
to introduce European labourers were not thus relieved, 
but this served as a sop to the Fazendeiro for relieving 
him of his slaves. The houses for the families to live 
in have to be built by the planter, and large pastures 
planted with perennial grasses, and strongly fenced 
to keep hungry cows, and horses, from breaking through 
when the dry weather dries up the grass. A cow is a 
necessity to each family and the colonist is not long 
in the country before he h' ys a horse also. The 
houses are generally built insets of two, each thirty 
feet by thirty inside. The house must be covered with 
tiles, have two doors and two or more windows. The 
wealthy planter makes the walls of brick or stone, 
but a great many have walla of weather boarding. 
The corn store, the pig and cow-houses are made by 
the colonist — and the dwelling house he is allowed 
to divide into rooms to suit) himself. 
A set of two colonists ‘ families ’ houses will cost 
£100 or £50 for family. To make a good well fenced 
pasture will not cost less than £10 per family. This 
expenditure — of £10 — a family — may be called repro- 
ductive, and it is an improvement to the estate. As 
soon as the colonist arrives on the estate, he gets 
an advance of money to buy a cow, a stock of pigs 
(young ones) and soon after — when the season comes — 
another advance to buy seed to plant his patch of 
ground. Food must be supplied from the estate store 
but charged to his account to keep him and his family 
until he has produced food stuffs for himself. Some- 
how the colonist very soon supplies himself — from 
these advances — with a gun, powder and shot, and 
some musical instrument. 
The good colonist pays off these advances in two 
years ; the indifferent may have still something to 
his debit at the end of his five years’ contract, and 
the bad may take a “ moonlight flitting,” and the 
utterly worthless have to be got rid of, at any cost, or at 
any loss. 
These advances may amount to £80 or £100 by the 
end of the year! A regular debtor and creditor ac- 
count is kept for each colonist. This is balanced at 
the end of crop season. If the co’onist is owing any- 
thing, it is carried forward to next season, and if the 
balance is in his favour he is at once paid in cash. 
The colonist’s contract is generally for five years. 
Not all have the same system of remunerating the 
colonist. Some are on the half and half system, 
that is half the cherry coffee goes to the colonist 
and half to the proprietor," but the latter takes all for 
curing and cleaning. Others pay so much per 50 
£150 
