The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Science
The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.
Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Botany, Economic
In the fourth year, it is presumed that the agricultural produce of
the land, and the first returns of coffee, should be sufficient to
meet all the current expenses. At the end of the fifth year there
ought to be forty thousand coffee trees four years old on the
estate, 60,000 of three years, and 100,000 of two and one year, the
produce of which ought to be at least 400 quintals, which, at a
moderate estimate, should be worth 2,400 dollars. Thus the
calculation goes on until we arrive at the end of the seventh year,
when the estate ought to be in full bearing. The returns are
estimated at 3,000 arrobas, or 750 quintals, which, at eight dollars
per quintal delivered free on board, make 6,000 dollars. The minor
products of the estate, such as Indian corn, pigs, and oil, are
given at 1,130 dollars, making the gross returns 7,130 dollars; and,
after deducting the annual expenses, leaving 5,300 dollars as the
regular return on the capital invested, which, having been about
40,000 dollars, gives about thirteen per cent.; not certainly to be
considered extravagant in a country where twelve per cent, is the
regular rate of interest. The produce of coffee from each section is
given at 400 arrobas, or 3,500 arrobas for the whole of the nine
sections. The average price of coffee, free of the expense of
carriage, is assumed to be two dollars the arroba, or eight dollars
per quintal, which would give a return of 7,200 dollars, besides the
repayment of the rent by the colonists.
The cultivation of coffee has been falling off in Cuba for several
years past, the crops it is asserted being too precarious there, and
the prices too low to encourage the continuance of planting. On the
northern side of the island is where this decrease is most
perceptible, several of the largest estates having been converted to
the growth of sugar and tobacco, others abandoned to serve as pasture
fields, and the very few remaining yielding less and less every year.
Henceforward the culture of this berry here is likely to be very
insignificant, and not many years will elapse before the amount
produced will merely suffice for the local consumption. About St. Jago
de Cuba the cultivation is more attended to, the article forming still
their principal export. Taking five quinquennial periods, the
following figures show the average annual exports of coffee:--
arrobas.
1826 to 1830 1,718,865
1830 " 1835 1,995,832
1835 " 1840 1,877,646
1841 " 1846 1,887,444
1846 " 1851 768,244
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