BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
162 
planting about the same time, but the shipments of the Buchanan Brothers had 
already established the fact that coffee of the very best quality could be grown 
in British Central Africa. Moreover, the labour difficulty was being gradually 
solved. When the natives around the infant settlements of Blantyre and 
Zomba were convinced that the white men would pay fairly for their labour, 
they began to come in increasing numbers to work in the plantations, and 
strangest of all, the warlike Angoni came down with their slaves, not to raid 
and ravage as before, but to obtain 
employment for three or four months 
in the year in the coffee plantations. 
The total amount of coffee ex¬ 
ported from this Protectorate in 1896 
was 320 tons. This coffee was sold 
in London at prices ranging between 
ggs. and 115 a. per cwt., much of it 
fetching prices over 100 shillings. 
The lowest price ever fetched by 
British Central Africa coffee was 86 j. 
per cwt. 
The coffee undoubtedly varies 
according to the amount of rainfall, 
the fertility of the soil, and the manner 
in which it is plucked, pulped, dried 
and packed. Manure and shade 1 seem j 
to be absolutely necessary to complete 
success. Artificial manures are now 
being imported, and as already stated 
cattle are kept in increasing quantities 
so that their dung may be used for 
the coffee plantations, and guano 
has recently been discovered on the 
islands of Lake Nyasa, which will 
prove very useful. It is also necessary 
that the plantations shall be scru¬ 
pulously weeded. When the soil is 
fertile, and all these conditions of manure, shade and weeding have been fulfilled, 
a yield of as much as 17 cwt. per acre has been taken. On the other hand, in 
much neglected gardens no more than 50 or 60 lbs. per acre has been realised. 
The average yield in the plantations is 3-i cwt. per acre, though it is the opinion 
of experts that this yield would be greatly increased if more care was shown 
in the cultivation of the coffee. 
In some years of poor rainfall or where the first rains have fallen early, 
and have brought coffee prematurely into blossom leaving the newly-formed 
seed to suffer from the subsequent drought, the berry grows diseased or the 
husk is found to be empty with no kernels at all inside. Some people are of 
opinion that this empty husk or diseased berry is caused by the presence 
of a small beetle. Others assert that it is the result of a plague of green 
1 To attain this end, I believe, in new plantations for every two coffee shrubs inserted in the ground 
one African fig tree is planted. These splendid wild fig trees grow to a great height and give absolute ■ 
shade. They also serve to protect the coffee trees from being wind blown or seared by the hot air coming 
off the plains in the dry season. 
A COFFEE TREE IN BEARING 
