36 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



that in the damper regions above may be two feet or more in height, 

 are reduced, on the exposed rocks of the hotter lowlands, to pigmies of 

 but two or three inches when mature. 



On hundreds of acres of the rocky hillsides for 2,000 feet below Cin- 

 chona is raised the Blue Mountain coffee, which Jamaicans, and the 

 London coffee tasters, say is the finest coffee in the world. The coffee 

 beans, the seeds of a small Abyssian tree related to Cinchona, are borne, 

 two together, in each of the l)right red, cherry-like fruits. The trees are 

 grown on the steep, rocky ground, with oranges or bananas scattered in 



Coffee Planter's Home with Cement Drying Plooe (Barbecue). 



iind windrows of drying coffee at left. 



Pulping mil 



for shade. They are cultivated entirely by hand and are pruned down to 

 five or six feet for convenience in picking the berries. The coffee beans 

 are freed from pulp, shelled out of the parchment after drying, win- 

 nowed and polished, sometimes by gasoline engines, but usually by water 

 power from the mountain streams. The beans are then sorted to sizes 

 by screens, culled over by hand, and sent to Kingston, 15 or 20 miles 

 away, on pack mules. Other parts of the cleared ground below Cin- 

 chona are planted with vegetables by the negro natives. These tempo- 

 rary tenants clear the land, raise potatoes, cabbages, scallions (onions), 

 beets, yams and coco root, for three years on it and leave it with a good 

 set of young coffee trees in payment for the lease. 



