THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS 163 
bugs which suck the sap of the coffee tree. All are agreed, however, that 
the only preventative of the defective berry is plenty of shade and manure. 
A system of “topping” 1 has now been almost universally adopted, though 
perhaps not to the same extent to which it is carried on in Ceylon and India, 
for it is difficult to train immediately a sufficient staff of natives who will handle 
and prune the coffee in a proper manner; and careless topping does more harm 
than good. The effect of the soil of this Protectorate on the coffee shrub 
is apparently to bring it into bearing at three years of age or under, and to 
cause it in its second crop to exhaust its vitality, if it be not previously pruned. 
Left to itself the coffee shrub in this main or second crop would give an 
enormous yield from the primary shoots and as a result of this exhaustion 
no secondary branches would be developed from which the next year’s crop 
would come; consequently instead of bearing year after year for something 
like fourteen years the coffee shrubs would be useless when four or five years 
old. The coffee tree generally blossoms during the dry season in the months 
of September and October, especially if a few showers of rain fall, as they 
often do at this time of the year. The berries are usually ripe and ready for 
picking at the end of June. 
In my report to the Foreign Office on the trade of British Central Africa 
during 1895 and 1896 I have estimated that a planter requires a capital of 
about AC °03 for the upkeep and bringing into bearing of 100 acres of coffee. 
This sum should purchase an estate of say 500 acres and provide for the cost of 
clearing it, obtaining coffee seedlings and planting them, and building a fairly 
comfortable house, and of meeting the expense of the planter’s living on a 
moderate scale during the three years. It would not, however, provide for the 
erection of a substantial brick house, 
nor of the pulping vats, and special 
machinery for pulping. With this he 
would have gradually to supplyhimself 
out of the profits his plantation would 
make after the first three years. Per¬ 
haps it may enable my readers to 
obtain a clear idea of the average 
experience of a young coffee planter; 
what difficulties he has to face ; what 
are the chances of success—what in 
fact any reader of my book who 
intends to become a coffee planter 
in British Central Africa would have 
to undergo—if I give here extracts 
from the imaginary letters of a typical 
planter, so far as my imagination will 
enable me to enter into the mind of A, B, C, or D, and reveal their thoughts 
and the impressions which are made on them by what they see and feel. 
“Balbrochan, Ayrshire, Scotland. 
“ Dear Fred, —As I have failed in my last chance for the army, the governor has 
decided that I am to go coffee planting somewhere in Central Africa. He has heard all 
about it from old Major McClear, who it appears has gone out there with his son (he is 
a widower you know) and is going to supplement his pension by making money out ot 
1 “Topping” means cutting about four inches off the top of the tree, so as to throw it back and 
cause the secondary branches to develop and come into bearing. 
a planter's temporary house 
