1 Oor., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 407 
bags, and kept at that average until 1875, when exports amounted to over 
3,000,000 bags. In 1881 the highest mark was attained at 4,377,418 bags. In 
later years the number began to decline, owing to the exhaustion of the 
productive power of the trees in the old districts. At Santos the records go 
back to 1850, when nearly 100,000 bags left that port. In 1871 the exports 
had grown to 500,000 bags; in 1877 to 1,000,000 bags; they increased in 1884 
to 2,000,000 bags; in 1890 to 8,000,000. bags; in 1894 to 4,000,000 bags; in 
1896 to 5,000,000 bags; in 1897-98 to 6,000,000 bags, near which figure 
production in that district is likely to maintain itself as long as the present 
economic conditions prevail, although the area available for coffee-planting in 
the State is practically inexhaustible, and no soil more appropriate for the 
purpose exists in the world. 
For 1898-99 the Rio and Santos crops are estimated at 8,500,000 bags, and 
the visible supply—meaning the stocks in Rio, Santos, afloat and in the public 
warehouses in Europe and the United States—had increased to 6,576,000 bags 
on the Ist January, 1899. 
How prices have ranged and the visible supply has varied, the following 
table makes clear :— 
Visible Supply of New York 
Coffee in Thousands Price of No. 7 
of Bags. Rio Gold. 
July ee ee aes oes — — 
SO ZEEE ONE er poe aPen SOmNO Be 138 
1893 an os os wig Si Addl 164 
1894 wh at mee seagate y LAG, 174 
18954 (emcees i eSNG 163 
STG yi, ser en eM ae OTR ad 132 
1897 see ‘ers ote) ca OVA > + 
TS98F Ses. sits ae ede hen 8 6 4 
1899 (estimated) ee j 6,700 es 
It is proposed in Brazil that a great coffee trust be formed limiting the 
exportation of coffee from the producing countries ; and in the March issue of 
the Bulletin of American Republics, Sefior Olavarria, of Venezuela, proposes 
the establishment of a trust with a central committee jn continuous session 11 
one of the European capitals, which would from time to time send to each one 
of the countries in the league instructions as to the amount of coffee that it 
might export in a season. The Government of each country in the league is to 
enter into a solemn covenant to implicitly obey the committee’s directions. 
Senor Olavarria proposes that this league should’ be immediately formed by a 
congress of economists of each of the countries concerned, which should meet 
in Washington as soon as possible. He predicts ay a result of the operation of 
his plan the greatest benefit to the manufacturing and exporting interests of the 
United States and of their customers, the coffee-growing countries of South 
America. 
THE FUTURE OF COFFER, 
THe American Grocer writes as follows:—The news received last week of 
injury to the Santos crop from frost demonstrated the sensitiveness ef the 
coffee market when any sudden or unexpected disaster, such as a heavy frost or 
crop failure, is reported which may so change the relation of supply to demand 
as to advance prices rapidly. 
For the last two years everything that has happened has told against the 
coffee market, and prices have gradually sunk lower and lower in consequence, 
so that now anything that may happen to next year’s crop will naturally work a 
complete change in the aspect of the market, and must certainly be in its 
favour. Prices, as we all know, are abnormally low at the present time, and 
with the possibility of a duty being placed on coffee, and the probability that 
interior stocks are very light—all point to a steady market in the future, if not 
to # considerable advance in prices, 
