Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/123

Rh departure in tea-growing, and with better understanding of new methods and the aid of machinery in curing the leaf, tea-gardens became profitable ventures. After fostering the industry to success, the government refused further contracts after 1865, and the tea-planters were free to dispose of their crops as they wished. All through the hill-country of the Preangers tea-bushes stripe the rolling ground for miles, and new ground is being cleared and leased each season. Java teas have greatly improved in quality, and win medals and mention at every exposition; but they have India and Ceylon as formidable rivals, in addition to China and Japan, and their market remains in Holland and Germany, and in Persia and Arabia by way of Bombay—this Mohammedan trade an inheritance of those early times, when the Dutch drove the Moormen out of Ceylon and the far Eastern trade.

While the culture system was succeeding with sugar and tea, the government coffee-plantations were extended, and more and more hill-country cleared for such cultivation. Coffee-culture was carried on by the government without contractors' aid. Each native was obliged to plant six hundred Arabian or Mocha coffee-trees and keep them in bearing, and deliver the crop cleaned and sorted at the government warehouses at a fixed price—nine and twelve florins the picul previous to 1874, although forty and forty-five florins were paid in the open market of the ports. By careful supervision and by percentages paid to native officials for any superior quality in the berries produced in their district, the coffee from Java government stores was superior to anything else sold in Europe,