210 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Manz., 1900. | 
Tropical Industries. 
COFFEE—THE POOR MAN’S CROP. 
INOve Ls: 
By HOWARD NEWPORT, 
Instructor in Coffee Culture. 
Some few remarks on coffee culture in general, without any reference ‘ | 
treatment in the field, curing-shed, or market, may perhaps be of interes! hat 
more so as some ideas and remarks have recently been made and taken Up 
have, perhaps, just missed the point and so, to many, become sae ee sts 
The Gabeanos of coffee in Queensland differs in several essentia po 
from its cultivation in most countries in which it has hitherto obtained a footh? 
The principal points to be taken into consideration in searching for new * f 
and localities may be taken as temperature, rainfall, climate, soil, and labour: ‘a 
these the first three might perhaps be looked upon as one and the same 
summed up in the term “climate,” but there are many instances where, ga 
the temperature be not too low and the annual rainfall neither too large, t00 at 
nor too much at a time, the cultivation of coffee is impossible for ° 
atmospheric conditions, such as liability to cyclonic disturbances, &c. fully 
Being a tropical plant, the area within which it can be success 4 
propagated is limited, but in this zone it will adapt itself marvellously to 
different conditions, and in so doing the growth and nature of the treé olf 
_ change considerably. In acclimatising itself to an arid sandy soil, a unifo ted 
high temperature, a low rainfall, or a dry climate, the small, short, almost all 
growth becpmes pronounced ; and in the rich soils, comparatively heavy ral? al 
and humid temperatures, the long stem between the axis and the large * | 
loosely built leaf and tree become, in a few generations, such marked chara¢ 
istics that, even on being transplanted from the one extreme to the other, * 3 
are retained so long as to cause the plant to be given almost a different ne ee 
In the natural spreading of the cultivation of coffee from the point W uy 
it was first grown as a commercial product, it has gone from country to Cor iat 
each in turn, while having very similar climatic conditions with better or ™ 
conditions of soil. viet 
Its strides in the direction of new and richer soils, and consequently heav 
yields, have been more marked and more noticeable than in the direction it 
either lower temperatures or less labour. Although there has been movers 4 
in these matters, also, it has been so much slower that coffee has earned for oe 
name as an industry almost exclusively belonging to the Oriental climate’ | 
black labour. Since so far the cultivation of coffee has not spread beyo? i of 
area of Asiatic or coloured nations, the question of reducing the amoul ay 
labour necessary has not been a particularly pressing one, owing to the extrem ° 
low wage on which ‘such nationalities can subsist. Latterly, howevel ess 
increased output from the greater area under its cultivation has forced gt™... 
to give considerable attention to the matter of yield; and in its sear¢ : 
conditions favouring such, coffee has come to the Australian continent, W ts 
temperature, rainfall, climate, and soil, and all the conditions necessary 1 ple 
growth are, even from the most pessimistic standpoint, exceptionally favours ig 
and very much in advance of almost any land yet under cultivation withiD 
tropics. i ¢ the 
Coffee, by coming to North Queensland, bas passed without the pale ° op 
turbaned Arab and scantily clad Oriental, with whom its cultivation has doit 
associated in our minds since it became known as a beverage, and in 80 ‘ 
has committed the—to conservative minds—heinous crime of breaking thro 
