The _arabica_ variety has practically been driven out of the districts below 3,500 feet altitude by the leaf disease, and has been succeeded by the more hardy _robusta_ and _liberica_ coffees and their hybrids. Illustrating the importance of _robusta_ coffee, Netherlands East India government in a statement issued August, 1919, estimated the area under cultivation on all islands as follows: _robusta_, eighty-four percent; _arabica_, five and one-half percent; _liberica_, four and one-half percent. The balance, six percent, was made up of scores of other varieties, among the most important being the _canephora_, _Ugandae_, _baukobensis_, _suakurensis_, _Quillou_, _stenophylla_, and _rood-bessige_. All of these are similar to _robusta_, and are exported as _robusta-achtigen_ (_robusta_-like). The _liberica_ group includes the _excelsa_, _abeokuta_, _Dewevrei_, _arnoldiana_, _aruwimiensis_, and _Dybowskii_. [Illustration: PALATIAL BUNGALOW OF ADMINISTRATOR, DRAMAGA, IN THE PREANGER DISTRICT, JAVA] SUMATRA. Practically all the coffee districts in Sumatra are on the west coast, where the plant was first propagated early in the eighteenth century. Padang, the capital city, is the headquarters for Sumatra coffee. With climate and soil similar to Java, the island of Sumatra has the added advantage that its land is not "coffee _moe_", or coffee tired, as is the case in parts of Java. Some of the world's best coffees are still coming from Sumatra; and the island has possibilities that could make it an important factor in production. Sumatra produced 287,179 piculs of coffee in 1920. The total production of all the islands that year was 807,591 piculs. [Illustration: OLD-TIME SAILING VESSEL LOADING IN PADANG ROADS] [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A DUTCH COFFEE-CLEANING FACTORY, PADANG] [Illustration: COFFEE SCENES IN SUMATRA, NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES] [Illustration: ADMINISTRATOR'S BUNGALOW ON THE GADOENG BATOE ESTATE, SUMATRA] The districts of Ankola, Siboga, Ayer Bangies, Mandheling, Palembang, Padang, and Benkoelen, on the west coast, have some of the largest estates on the island; and their products are well known in international trade. The east coast has recently gone in for heavy plantings of _robusta_. As in Java, coffee for a century or more was cultivated under the government-monopoly scheme. The compulsory system was given up in this island in 1908, three years after it was abandoned in Java.