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
The quantity of land under culture with coffee by Europeans, was about
55,000 acres in 1851. Allowing 20,000 acres to produce the quantity of
native coffee exported, and 5,000 for that consumed in the island, the
total extent of coffee cultivation in Ceylon, European and native,
will be 80,000 acres.
The produce exported in 1849 was 373,593 cwt., while in the year 1836,
when attention was first directed to this island as a coffee-producing
country, the crop was not more than 60,330 cwt. Large profits were
made by the first planters, more capital was introduced, until,
between the years 1840 and 1842, the influx of capitalists, to
undertake this species of cultivation, completely changed the face of
the colony, and enlarged its trade, and the produce of coffee in
sixteen years has increased sixfold.
The general culture resembles the practice in Java. Of the Ceylon
coffee, that grown about Ramboddi fetches the highest price, from the
superiority of the make, shape, and boldness of the berry. The weight
per bushel, clean, averages 56 lbs.; 57½ lbs. is about the greatest
weight of Ceylon coffee. The lowest in the scale of Ceylon plantation
coffee is the Doombera, which averages 54½ lbs., clear, per bushel.
The following have been the prices of good ordinary Ceylon coffee in
the port of London for the last eight years in the month of January,
1853, 46s. to 48s.; 1852, 40s. to 42s.; 1851, 38s. 6d. to 40s. 6d.;
1850, 56s. 6d. to 57s. 6d.; 1849, 31s. to 32s. 6d.; 1848, 31s. 6d. to
33s.; 1847, 39s. 6d. to 41s. 6d.; 1846, 49s. to 50s.
Forest lands are those usually planted in Ceylon, and the expense
attendant on clearing and reclaiming them from a state of nature, and
converting them into plantations, is estimated to average £8 per acre.
The lowest upset price of crown lands in the colony is £1 per acre.
Coffee planting has failed over a considerable portion of the southern
province of the island, where the experiment was tried. The
temperature was found to be too equable, not descending sufficiently
low at any time to invigorate the plant; which, though growing
luxuriantly at first, soon became weak and delicate. Nurseries are
established for young plants. The districts in which the coffee is
principally cultivated, extend over nearly the whole of the hilly
region, which is the medium and connecting link between the
mountainous zone and the level districts of the coast.
The mania for coffee planting has recently subsided, in consequence of
the barely remunerative returns at which that article has been sold,
ascribable partly to over-production, and in some measure, perhaps, to
the temporary glut of foreign coffee thrown on the British market by
the reduction of the duty. As regards the yield, some estates in
Ceylon have produced upwards of 15 cwt. per acre, but it is a good
estate that will average seven, and many do not give more than 4 cwt.
the acre.
The shipments from Colombo for five years, are stated below, with the
class of coffee:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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