CULTIVATION OF THE COFFEE PLANT Page 16

French Indo-China. Coffee culture in French Indo-China is a comparatively small factor in international trade, although production is on the increase, particularly from those plantations planted to robusta, liberica, and excelsa varieties. The average annual export for the five-year period ended with 1918 was 516,978 pounds, nearly all of it going to France.

The first experiments with coffee growing were begun in 1887, near Hanoi in Tonkin. The seeds were of the arabica variety, brought from Réunion, and the production from the first years was distributed throughout the country to foster the industry. Eventually arabica was found unsuitable to the soil and climate, and experiments were begun with robusta and other hardier types.

A survey of the industry of the country in 1916 showed that the plant was being successfully grown in the provinces of Tonkin, Anam, and Cochin-China, and that altogether there were about 1,000,000 trees in bearing. The plantations are mostly in the foot-hills of the mountain ranges or on the slopes, although a few are located near the coast line at 1,000 feet, or even less, above sea-level.

The larger and more successful plantations follow advanced methods of planting and cultivating, while the government maintains experimental stations for the purpose of fostering the industry. It is believed that French Indo-China in coming years will assume an important position in the coffee trade of the world, particularly as a source of supply for France.

Federated Malay States, Including Straits Settlements. Rubber has been the chief cause of the decline of coffee industry in the Federated Malay States. Since the closing years of the nineteenth century coffee has been steadily on the downward path in acreage and production, with the possible exception of parts of Straits Settlements, which in 1918 exported, mostly to England, some 3,500,000 pounds of good grade coffee. The other sections of the federation shipped less than 1,000,000 pounds.

In the early days, planters of the Malay Peninsula knew little about proper methods of cultivating, and depended mostly upon what they learned of the practises in Ceylon, which, unfortunately for them, were not at all suited to the Malay country. They secured their best crops from lowlands where peaty soil prevailed, and eventually all the coffee grown on the peninsula came from such regions.

Liberica is mostly favored, and is grown with some success as an inter-crop with cocoanuts and rubber. The robusta variety has also been introduced, but does not seem to do as well as the liberica. Between 2,300 and 2,600 acres, according to recent returns, have been under coffee as a catch-crop with cocoanuts, out of a total of 40,000 acres in cocoanut estates. One planter has been reported as making quite a success with this method of inter-cropping for coffee, but it is not generally approved.

There has been a general decline in acreage, product, and exports since the closing years of the nineteenth century, until now the industry is regarded as practically at a stand-still and likely so to remain as long as rubber shall continue to hold the commercially high position to which it has attained. Unsatisfactory prices realized for the crop, poor growth of the trees in some localities, and the gradual weakening of the trees under rubber as they mature, are offered as the principal explanations of this decrease in acreage. Nearly all the Malay crop in recent years has been grown in Selangor, though Negri Sembilan, Pahang, and Perak continue as factors in the trade.

Coffee Trees of the Bourbon Variety, French Indo-China

Australia. Although Australia is a prospective coffee-growing country of large natural possibilities, the Australian Year Book for 1921 states that Queensland is the one state in which experiments have been tried, and that in 1919–20 there were only twenty-four acres under cultivation. Queensland soils are of volcanic origin, exceptionally rich, and support trees that are vigorous and prolific with a bean of fine quality. The arabica is chiefly cultivated, and the trees can be successfully grown on the plains at sea-level as well as up to a height of 1,500 or 2,000 feet. The trees mature earlier than in some other countries. Planted in January, they frequently blossom in December of the next year, or a month later, and yield a small crop in July or August; that is, in about two years and a half from the time of planting. The bean closely resembles the choice Blue Mountain coffee of Jamaica. For coffee cultivation the labor cost is almost prohibitive.

Picking Coffee on a North Queensland Plantation

As much as fifteen hundred-weight of beans per acre have been gathered from trees in North Queensland; and for years the average was ten hundred-weight per acre. After thirty years of cultivation, no signs of disease have appeared. At late as 1920, the government was proposing to make advances of fourteen cents a pound upon coffee in the parchment to encourage the development of the industry to a point where it would be possible for local coffee growers to capture at least the bulk of the commonwealth's import coffee trade of 2,605,240 pounds.

Coffee grows well in most all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and in some of them, as in the Philippines and Hawaii, the industry in past years, reached considerable importance.

Hawaii. Coffee has been grown in Hawaii since 1825, from plants brought from Brazil. It has also been said that seed was brought by Vancouver, the British navigator, on his Pacific exploration voyage, 1791–94. Not, however, until 1845 was an official record made of the crop, which was then 248 pounds. The first plantations, started on the low levels, near the sea, did not do well; and it was not until the trees were planted at elevations of from 1,000 to 3,000 feet above sea-level that better returns were obtained.

Coffee is grown on all the islands of the group, but nowhere to any great extent except on Hawaii, which produces ninety-five percent of the entire crop. Next in importance, though far behind, is the island of Oahu. On Hawaii there are four principal coffee districts, Kona, Hamakua, Puna, and Olaa. About four-fifths of the total output of the islands is produced in Kona. At one time there were considerable coffee areas in Maui and Kauai, but sugar cane eventually there took the place of coffee.

COFFEE IN BLOSSOM, CAPTAIN COOK COFFEE COMPANY ESTATE, KEALAKEKUA, KONA, HAWAII