Or 



13 



the earliest spring growth is that which makes the most 

 valuable eommodit v. 



Coffee is a strong cerebral stimulant: it is also an anti- 

 metabolic of great power. As a dietetic beverage, it" we 

 omit the populous Chinese and restrict ourselves to European 

 nations and their colonists, it is of more universal consumption 

 among them than tea, though the consumption of tea by the 

 English, the Americans, and British colonists results in a 

 commerce which is truly immense Used a? a beverage, 

 coffee is stimulant to the nervous and tonic to the muscular 

 systems. It slowly strengthens the force of the circulation, 

 and it is by this mode of effect that it acts as a tonic and 

 diuretic. As a cerebral stimulant coffee beverage is resorted 

 to by students and authors, by orators and statesmen, and 

 by all who have to undergo intellectual labour, A cup of 

 strong coffee stimulates the brain and rouses it from torpor; 

 mental action is excited by the draught, and a How of ideas 

 is promoted. If taken late at night, it is apt to produce 

 sleeplessness by its exciting action on the brain; if, on the 

 contrary, it be taken in the morning, its effects extend to the 

 digestive system, and the powers of the stomach are assisted. 

 For instance, an eminent authority on dietetics recommends 

 that when the breakfast consists of a substantial meal, say 

 of meat, or even of oatmeal porridge, coffee should form a 

 part and be taken at the end of the meal, to prevent mental 

 torpor from the effects of the food and to assist digestion. 

 This recommendation could now with propriety be made to in- 

 clude kola. 



The stimulant powers of coffee depend upon a volatile 

 oil as well as on the caffeine which it contains. The volatile 

 oil has been named " caffeone," and it is this which gives the 

 peculiar and well-known delicious aroma which coffee possess- 

 es. To produce the aromatic effect in the fullest, coffee-ber- 

 ries should be selected freshly, but not too highly, roasted, 

 and the coffee should be infused merely with boiling water, 

 but should not be boiled. To prepare coffee for its sustaining 

 properties, which it possesses in a remarkable degree, it be- 

 comes an object to extract all the caffeine and all the soluble 

 nutritious matter, and this is most effectually done by boil- 

 ing. 



Some years ago, a French authority, M. de Gasparin, 

 communicated to the Academy of Sciences, in Paris, a paper 

 on the value of coffee in the dietary, in which he illustrated 

 the sustaining powers of boiled coffee by referring to the ex- 

 traordinary feats of labour accomplished by the Belgian 

 miners at Charleroi, on a diet which were it not for the coffee 

 they consumed would be meagre. On (me occasion some 

 French miners went to work in the mines in Belgium, but, 



