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

The better to exhibit the decrease of production throughout the
island, I may state that the export from 1839 to 1841 inclusive, was
in the aggregate 1,332,221 quintals; 1842 to 1844, inclusive, was in
the aggregate 1,217,666 quintals; 1845 to 1847, inclusive, was in the
aggregate but 583,208 quintals. The exports of coffee for the whole
island, were, in 1840, 2,197,771 arrobas; in 1841, 1,260,9201/2 arrobas.

In 1847 there were 2,064 plantations under cultivation with coffee in
Cuba, in 1846 there were only 1,670. The production of 1849 was
1,470,754 arrobas, valued at 2,206,131 dollars. From the year 1841 to
1846, the average yearly production was 45,236,100 lbs.; but from 1846
to 1851, it was only 19,206,100 lbs.; showing a falling off of 72 per
cent.; the production still further decreased in 1851, it being only
13,004,350 lbs., or 1.52 per cent. less than the preceding year. This
enormous decline in the production of coffee has been caused by the
low price of the article in the markets of Europe and the United
States, coupled with the more remunerative price of sugar, during the
same period; causing capitalists rather to invest money in the
formation of new sugar estates. As a consequence, many coffee
plantations have been turned into cane cultivation; or, being
abandoned, the slaves attached thereto were sold or leased to sug