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:—­

Plantation.    Native.     Total.
cwt.        cwt.       cwt.
1845     75,002      112,889   187,891
1846     91,240       70,991   162,231
1847    106,198      143,457   249,655
1848    191,464       88,422   279,886
1849    243,926      118,756   362,682
1850    198,997       56,692   255,689
1851    220,471       97,091   317,562

While, in 1839, the total value of the exports from Ceylon was only L330,000, in 1850 the value of the single staple of coffee was no less than L609,262, and in 1851 had still further increased.

I append a memorandum of the quantities of coffee exported from Ceylon since 1836:—­

Quantity.    Value.
cwt.        L
1836                 60,329
1837                 34,164
1838                 49,541
1839                 41,863
1840                 68,206
1841                 80,584    196,048
1842                119,805    269,763
1843                 94,847    192,891
1844                133,957    267,663
1845                178,603    363,259
1846                173,892    328,781
1847                293,221    456,624
1848                280,010    387,150
1849                373,593    545,322
1850                278,473    609,262
1851                339,744
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Total in 16 years 2,600,832
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Average             162,552     (Ceylon Almanac for 1853.)

The local export duty of two-and-a-half per cent., was abolished from 1st September, 1848.

From these figures it appears that, in a period of sixteen years, Ceylon exported two and a half millions of cwts. of coffee.  The consumption of coffee, although for a long time stationary in Britain, now that adulteration is no longer legalised, is likely to increase as rapidly as in other parts of the world; and it appears pretty evident that, so long as anything like remunerative prices can be obtained, Ceylon will do her part in supplying the world with an article which occupies the position of a necessary to the poor as well as a luxury to the rich.  The exports of coffee from this colony have, within a few thousands of hundredweights, been nearly quadrupled since 1843, when only 94,000 cwts. were sent away.

Dr. Rudolph Gygax, in a paper submitted to the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, offered remarks on some analyses, of the coffee of Ceylon, with suggestions for the applications of manures.