212 CUBA AND rOHTO RICO 



tain estates are situated on sueh steep slopes that one 

 naturally wonders how the field-hands maintain a vertical 

 position while cultivating them. From the sea these plan- 

 tations appear far above as small patches of brown in the 

 general mantle of green vegetation. 



The next grade of coffee is grown in the hills of the 

 plateau region of Manchester and St. Ann's, at elevations 

 of from fifteen to twenty-five hundred feet. This obtains 

 only half the price of the Blue Mountain variety. 



Large quantities of coffee are also grown in small patches 

 by the negroes. This is badly cured and sold to local 

 merchants, or retailed by the gill and pint in the little 

 markets. This coffee of the common people brings only 

 one fourth the price of the best quality. 



It has been shown that if the settlers were provided 

 with a central factory, worked by people who thoroughly 

 understood the curing of coffee, the value would be in- 

 creased at least twenty per cent. It is estimated that bad 

 methods of culture and defective curing result in an 

 annual loss to the island of nearly a million dollars. The 

 berry was formerly cultivated much more extensively 

 than now, and there were three times as much of it 

 shipped in 1814 as in 1895 and 1896. There are many 

 abandoned estates in the Blue Mountains, which could be 

 made productive by judicious cultivation and manuring. 

 Some of these, latterly bought by settlers, have been 

 brought into an excellent state of cultivation. There is 

 evidently a promising field for development in this direc- 

 tion, both in the Blue Mountains and in the coffee districts 

 of the west. 



Liberian coffee is being largely introduced into Jamaica, 

 owing to the fact that it will grow in sheltered localities 

 with a moist climate, at a lower altitude than the other vari- 

 eties, and even on some of the old abandoned sugar-estates. 

 It is more hardy and consequently less subject to disease 

 than Arabian coffee, and can be cultivated in connection 

 with the shade of the bananas, now so extensively planted. 



