57 8 
nursery a five-year-old Arabian coffee tree which enjoys complete 
shade, and which is at this moment loaded with berries/’ 
Tea . — In spite of various-diseases which have attacked the leaves 
of the tea plant the Agricultural Department is able to report fair 
progress with this product. The condition of a large proportion 
of the trees leaves no doubt that under favourable conditions ot 
soil the plants will thrive during showery weather. It is note- 
worthy that Arabs and natives take more interest in tea than m 
any other new product at Dunga. When the leisure loving and 
improvident character of the Swahili is taken into consideration, 
as also that of the Arab, and these qualities apply largely to both, 
it appears to the writer to be half the battle that they should be 
awake to the advantages to be obtained from the cultivation of this 
article of trade. , . , 
Vanilla . — -It would appear from a comparison of the samples or 
vanilla with those of other countries, which have been sent to the 
United Kingdom, that Zanzibar can compete with otl£r vanilla- 
producing countries such as Seychelles. 
VIEWS OP A MANAOS RUBBER MERCHANT. 
During a recent visit to New York of Mr. N. H. Witt, a lead- 
ing rubber merchant of Manaos, the rubber centre of the upper 
Amazon, be was asked by The India Rubber World for his views 
on the practicability cf companies being organised to work on a 
large scale in the movement of rubber direct from the producing 
districts to the consuming markets. „ 
“ I do not believe that such a thing can be done as yet, said he. 
<f Not that I profess to know more about the subject than any one 
can know who has spent several years in the rubber trade on the 
Amazon, and who has felt an interest in everything that has gone 
on around him pertaining to rubber. My own business is that of 
buying and selling rubber along the lines of established custom. 
But I have seen nothing that would lead me to take an interest 
personally in such an undertaking as you suggest. And 1 have 
seen not a few failures. _ . 
“ There was, for instance, the Comptoir Colonial Francais, which 
lately went into bankruptcy in Paris, after losing about -$2, 000,000 
in a little more than a year’s trading in rubber on the Amazon. 
These companies, starting without any knowledge of conditions 
in the rubber countries, send out managers who feel self confident 
and who are not disposed to learn anything from persons who have 
been longer on the ground and have gained, perhaps by painful 
and costly experience, some knowledge of the facts which have to 
be dealt with. 
“ The difficulty of the labor problem is an old story which con- 
tinues to be repeated. In the Amazon valley all the labor must be| 
imported, together with provisions. Whether the trouble is less 
in this regard in Bolivia, where there are Indians in the rubber 
forests who can be induced to work, I do not know. But even there, 
