government control
of fully four-fifths of the area under the crop, only the small balance
being owned or worked independently by private enterprise. For many
years after the cultivation had been fully started, this condition of
the business persisted. Most of the privately-operated plantations had
been in existence before the government had set up its monopoly system.
Others were on the estates of native princes who, in treating with the
Dutch, had been able to retain some of their original sovereign rights.
While these plans worked well in encouraging the industry at the outset,
they were not conducive to the fullest possibilities in production.
Forced labor on the government plantations was naturally apt to be slow,
careless, and indifferent. Private ownership and operation bettered this
somewhat, the private estates being able to show annual yields of from
one to two pounds per tree as compared with only a little more than
one-half pound per tree on government-controlled estates.

In the course of time, the system of private ownership gradually
expanded beyond that of the government; and before the end of the
nineteenth century, private owners were growing and exporting more
coffee than did the Javanese government. The government withdrew from
the coffee business in Java in 1905, and the last government auction was
held in June of that year. The monopoly in Sumatra was given up in 1908.
After that, however, coffee continued to be grown on government lands,
but in much less quantity than in the years immediately preceding. The
Dutch government withdrew from all coffee cultivation in 1918-19.

According to statistics, the ground under cultivation for all kinds of
coffee in Java and the other islands of the Dutch East Indies in 1919
was 142,272 acres, of which 112,138 acres were in Java. Of this area,
110,903 acres were planted with _robusta_, 15,314 acres with _arabica_,
4,940 with _liberica_, and 11,115 with other varieties.

There were more than 400 European-managed estates in 1915, covering a
planted area of about 209,000 acres. Three hundred and thirty of these
estates, representing 165,000 acres, were in Java. On that island
production in 1904 was 47,927,000 pounds; in 1905, 59,092,000 pounds; in
1906, 66,953,000 pounds; in 1907, 31,044,000 pounds; 1908, 39,349,000
pounds. The total crop in 1919 for all the Netherlands East Indies was
97,361,000 pounds, as against 140,764,800 pounds for 1918.

Intensive cultiv