The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1920-01-15
Why Coffee Is Higher.

er in America who has not wonder
ed why coffee after remaining al
most the only article in the grocery
stores to stay cheap throughout the
war, suddenly began to rise sharply
in price after the war was over,
James H. Collins, the noted writer
on trade and commerce, gives the an
swer in one of the articles he is
writing for the Philadelphia Public
Ledger from South America. Coffee
costs more than it did because in
June, 1918, severe frost cut the
Sac Paulo coffee crop exactly in half;
and as Sac Paulo, which is one OF
the most important States Of Brazil,
furnishes the world with half of its
coffee-much of it served, Mr.. Col
lins says, under such we'll known
names as Java, Mocha, Bahia and
the like-Brazil has been able at
last to do what for years she has
been trying to make possible, name
ly. advance the price of coffee.
For a number of years the coffee
growers of Brazil had been in very
much the same situation as the cot
ton growers of this country. They
were suffering severely from the
fact that they had made Sac Paulo
a onecrop State and were producing
more coffee than was needed to meet
the immediate requirements OF con-
sumerS. Coffee, like cotton, can only
be grown under certain climatic con-
ditions. 1t is not tropical plant in
the strict sense of the word, fire.
quently having to be shaded. On the
other hand, it is easily susceptible to
cold. The uplands of Sac Paulo, says
Mr.. Collins, "are warm enough to
grow coffee with the possibility OF
damaging frost about once in ten
years and cool enough to grow it
without shade" Under the system
of cultivation practiced in Brazil,
landowners have been accustomed,
since the passing of slavery, to bring
in peasants from Europe, allotting
these peasants tracts of land to clear
and farm in general crops on condi-
ton that they planted coffee at the
same time. When the coffee trees
came into bearing. in about five
years from the time of planting, the
peasant turned the land back to the
owner and was allotted fresh
tract.
The result of this method was that
coffee plantations expanded more
rapidly than the market demand for
coffee warranted. The price dropped
and many planters found themselves
in a bad way financially. The State
Government of Sac Paulo and the
Federal Government of Brazil both
attempted to come to their relief
with a huge "valorization" scheme
under which the State bought the
coffee from the planters and at
tempted to hold enough of it off the
market to maintain prices. But,
SAYS Mr.. Collins, "coffee began to
accumulate in Brazil until it seemed
certain three years ago that valori-
zation would result in the loss of
millions of dollars" Only the frost
referred to above has saved the sit
uation for Brazilians, giving them
breathing spell which should last,
it is stated, at least three years, en-
abling Brazil to sell her accumula-
tions at a profit Of several million
dollars, and rendering high prices
for coffee certain for at least three
years to come.
Two interesting developments are
reported by Mr.. Collins in this con-
nection, one the effort which is on
foot by scientists to discover some
method of fertilizing the coffee
plants so that they will not exhaust
the soil in periods of twenty to for
ty years as has been the case in the
past, and the other the movement to
develop better farming methods so
that Sac Paulo will cease to be a
one-crop country. He tells how when
the first silo was completed in Sac
Paulo last summer the President Of
the country and the ministry of
State took a day off and made the
event a Government celebration.
Agriculture methods have been back
ward in general in Sac Paulo, much
of the farm work having been done
by hand and few animals being used
in the cultivation of crops. 1mprov-
ed methods give notable results and
Mr.. Collins says that zone of the
most famous farming centers in