Other African Countries. Practically every part of Africa seems to be suitable for coffee cultivation, even United South Africa, in the southern part of the continent, producing 140,212 pounds in 1918. To name all the countries in which it is grown would be to list nearly all the political divisions of Africa. Among the largest producers are the British East African Protectorate, 18,735,572 pounds in 1918; French Somaliland, 11,222,736 pounds in 1917; Angola, 10,655,934 pounds in 1913; Uganda, 9,999,845 pounds in 1918; former German East Africa, 2,334,450 pounds in 1913; Cape Verde Islands, 1,442,910 pounds in 1916; Madagascar, 707,676 pounds in 1918; Liberia, 761,300 pounds in 1917; Eritrea, 728,840 pounds in 1918; St. Thomas and Prince's Islands, 484,350 pounds in 1916; and the Belgian Congo, 375,000 pounds in 1917.
A Galla Coffee Grower, and His Helper, in His Grove of Young Trees near Harar
Angola. Coffee is Angola's second product, and there are large areas of wild-coffee trees. With a production of nearly 11,000,000 pounds, Angola ranks about third in Africa as a coffee-growing country. The coffee is gathered and sold by the natives, and there are also several European companies engaged in the coffee business. The chief coffee belt extends from the Quanza River northward to the Kongo at an altitude of 1,500 to 2,500 feet. In the Cazengo valley the wild trees are so thick that thinning out is the only operation necessary to the plantation-owner. When the trees become too tall, they are simply cut off about two feet above ground; and new shoots appear from the trunks the following season.
The largest coffee plantation, owned by the Companhia Agricola de Cazengo, produced in 1913, a record year, nearly 1,500 tons.
Liberia. Coffee is native to Liberia, growing wild in the hinterland of the negro republic, and in the natural state the trees often attain a height of from thirty to forty feet. Cultivated Liberian coffee, Coffea liberica, has become a staple of the civilized inhabitants of the country, and is grown successfully in hot, moist lowlands or on hills that are not much elevated. On account of the size of the trees, only about four hundred can be planted to the acre. In recent years the native Africans have been planting thousands of trees in the district of Grand Cape Mount. Coffee is grown in all parts of the republic, but chiefly in Grand Cape Mount and Montserrado.
General Outlook in Africa. In the African countries under control of European governments much recent progress has been made in promoting coffee growing and in improving methods of cultivation.
British interests were reported in 1919 as having started a movement toward reviving interest in the coffee growing industry in the British possessions in Africa. The report stated that Uganda, in the East African Protectorate, had 21,000 acres under coffee cultivation, with 16,000 acres more in other parts of the Protectorate, and 1,300 acres in Nyasaland; also that there is no hope of an immediate revival of the industry in Natal, where it was killed twenty years ago by various pests; "but it should certainly be established in the warmer parts of Rhodesia; and in the northern part of the Transvaal an effort is being made to bring this form of enterprise into practical existence."
Coffee growing possibilities in British East Africa (Kenya Colony) are alluring, according to reports from planters in that region. Late in 1920, Major C.J. Ross, a British government officer there, said that "British East Africa is going to be one of the leading coffee countries of the world." Coffee grows wild in many parts of the Protectorate, but the natives are too lazy to pick even the wild berries.