From the early part of the nineteenth century up to 1905, cultivation was carried on under a Dutch government monopoly--excepting for the five years, 1811-16, when the British had control of the island. The government monopoly was first established when Marshal Daendels, acting for the crown of Holland, took control of the islands from the Netherlands East India Company. Before that time, the princes of Preanger had raised all the coffee under the provisions of a treaty made in the middle of the eighteenth century, by which they paid an annual tribute in coffee to the company for the privilege of retaining their land revenues. When the Dutch government recovered the islands from the British, the plantations, which had been permitted to go to ruin, were put in order again, and the government system re-established. [Illustration: A HEAVY FRUITING OF COFFEA ROBUSTA IN JAVA] A modification of the first monopoly plan of the government was put into effect later in the regime of Governor Van den Bosch, and was maintained until into the twentieth century. Under the Daendels plan, each native family was required to keep 1000 coffee trees in bearing on village lands, and to give to the government two-fifths of the crop, delivered cleaned and sorted, at the government store. The natives retained the other three-fifths. Under the Van den Bosch system, each family was required to raise and care for 650 trees and to deliver the crop cleaned and sorted to the government stores at a fixed price. The government then sold the coffee at public auctions in Batavia, Padang, Amsterdam, or Rotterdam. This method of fostering the new industry resulted in government control of fully four-fifths of the area under the crop, only the small balance being owned or worked independently by private enterprise. For many years after the cultivation had been fully started, this condition of the business persisted. Most of the privately-operated plantations had been in existence before the government had set up its monopoly system. Others were on the estates of native princes who, in treating with the Dutch, had been able to retain some of their original sovereign rights. While these plans worked well in encouraging the industry at the outset, they were not conducive to the fullest possibilities in production. Forced labor on the government plantations was naturally apt to be slow, careless, and indifferent. Private ownership and operation bettered this somewhat, the private estates being able to show annual yields of from one to two pounds per tree as compared with only a little more than one-half pound per tree on government-controlled estates.