308 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



S] I'l EMBEE 25, 1915. 



WEST INDIAN FRUIT. 



BLUE MOUNTAIN COFFEE. 



Mr. A. St. ' •• i. S] nei try furn- 



ished this Office with a useful and inter ounl of the 



famous Blue Mountain coffee industry of thai coli 



Mi 3poo gives consideration first to the quality of 

 the -"il producing this coffee. The lands on which the planl 



osvn are generallj ver) steep hillsides, and in many 

 ] >la. . -^ the soil is now insufficient (owing to denudation), and 

 too poor to produce profitable coffee bushes, except in the 

 little valleys and pockets where there is still depth and suit- 

 able quality of soil. It is stated that an estate having perhaps 



I. i acres at one time or another suitable for coffee might 



to-day find it difficult to maintain LOO to 150 acres. The soil 



is the product ol the d mposition of shales, and is of no 



great depth anywhere, the more denuded lands being merely 

 rotten shale, and hardly tobecla ed as -"il at all. Bowever, 

 the coffee which is produced is well known to be of excellent 



•■■ . The prospect of obtaining profitable crops is stated 

 e with the elevation. For best all round purposes 

 2,000 to 2,500 feetis the best ; higher than that, although 

 the qualitj of the coffee is better, the yield is smaller, and as 

 the rainfall is often too heavy, the trees d<> not always tlower 

 except a period of drought happens to come in between the 

 rainy spells It appears that the seas.mil changes experienced 

 during the last few years have rendered the production of 

 Blue Mountain coffee more precarious than in former years. 



At high elevations, Darnel) over 2,1 feet, shade, except for 



very young coffee, is not desirable ; at lower elevations it is 



indispensable. Another effect of elevation upon the plant is 



bi i e of pruning. Coffee grown at high elevations 



pruned ' sla.it top', whereas this pruning does not suit 

 coffee in the lowlands. Mr. Spooner is of the opinion that 

 the tend. 'my of coffee at these rainy and colder elevations is 



d lea es and wood, and in order to ensure bearing 

 •well, a much more drastic pruning is needed. On the low- 

 lands the rainfall is less, and it is desirable to have a larger 

 tree, with a mure extended root range, The pruning of coffee 



at different elevations is not a difficult matter, but it is too 



much a question of practical judgment to allow ol descrip- 

 tion in this art tele. 



Mr. S] i.e.' then proceeds to describe the machinerj used 



on some of the .states as long ago as 100 years. The pulper 



ts '.t a wooden roller covered with copper (indented) 

 and turned by a mule. The cherries are forced but ween the 

 roller and a bardwood block, whilst the Leans are left on the 



hardw I block and fall backward on to a shaking riddle 



through which they pass into a stone cistern. The mucilage 



..is from the beans in twenty-four to forty-eight hours 

 assisted bj the water which is run into the pulper all the 

 tin., mil in which the pulped Leans lie. After fermentation 

 the beans at i >1 dried. When quite dry it 



takes about three or four weeks to reach this condition tin v 

 Me put int.. a circular wooden trough in which runs a 

 great heavy wooden wheel pulled round by a mule. The 

 'scrunching' action splits off t he parchment : the beans are 



then winnowed and put ba I igain under the wheel to 

 '.scrunch' off the silver-skin. They are then winnowed again, 

 sized in a i ser and then hatod picked to reject the 



inferior beans ..I each grade. 



The above represents the old way of preparing i iffee 



The new way consists in using a much improved pulpi 



constructed nevertheless on the same principles as the ..Id. 



Further, after drying, the beans are hulled in a machine 



coarse-threaded screw working very loosely in 



d nut: the space between the screw and x\w 

 nut is where the parchment coffee is •scrunched'. After 

 winnowing, the cofifle passes to many different forms of 

 sizers, which not only separate the beans by virtue of their 

 diameters, but also -which appears more important 



them according to their length. In a fancy article like Blue 



Mountain coffee tppearance counts for everything, and a long 

 Lean having a good diameter i certainly an attractive looking 

 article. The grades in one of the largest coffee bouses of 

 Jamaica are Peaberry, Nbs. 1, J. 3, I. and Priage Nbs. 1 and 



1'. Peaberry is produced by weak and old trees that pro- 

 duce a certain proportion of cherries having only one seed. 



which then lie, s rounded something like cowrie. That 



i ins grade ranks so high is further evidence that plant 

 vigour and good quality in coffee d.. not go together, just 



as in the case ..I sugar-cane cultivation, a certain degree of 

 fertility, not too high,- produces the best mgar-mal 



According 1.. Mr, Spoon ion of the mountain 



coffee usually consists merely in weeding I wo or three tilings 



i anil pruning according to the season and soil, and 



irrigation sometimes every year, or once in two or three years. 



Agriculturally the coffee laud of Jamaica seems to be greatly 



ted. The tree is said to Le a surface feeder, but it 

 seems that in order to live on some of the lands it is at present 

 found growing on it must have a vei \ wide root range. The 

 Lushes are planted 1x4 feet on p ' highlands to 0x4 



' richer laud. They begin bearing at about four years 

 old. The young seedling plants are got from sell sown plants 

 at the base of the growing Lushes. N'.. nurseries are made. 

 As regards yield to Le expected, Mr. Spooner states 

 tint 266 IL. per acre per annum is considered very good. A 

 small yield is not moreathan 100 ft. per acre per annum. Since 

 there are 1,815 trees per acre planted at Iix4 feet, the yield 

 per tree for a good crop works out at about only l^- z. of 

 coffee per tree pei annum. The cherries are also measured 

 in a box (1 foot 6 inches,., i foot 6 inches xl foot 4 



inches o cubic feetland this is supposed to give 1 bushel 



of dry coffee in the parchment or anything between 20 and 

 25 lb. of dried clean coffee fit for sale. Picking costs 1*. 3d. 



to I'--. Li/, per box (•"> cubic feet) ..f cherries according to the 



i i. .p. and a g 1 picker in a good crop picks ; to | box per 



day. The finished, coffee is put up in 100-fl). canvas Lags, 

 twenty nine of which are a mule load. In Liverpool, the 



price is anything from 90*. to 120s. or even 130*. per cwt, 



Lut it is difficult t.. sell quickly. It is stated that it is not 



Uncommon to have to wait six or eight months for account 



sales. Financing therefore becomes difficult. Peasant coffee 

 is bought in the cherry at from (is. to 12a. per box. The 

 yield of about 200 t*>. cleaned , • would be about 



1 2i boxes of cherries. Mr. Spooner states that from this 

 source the native in the coffee district derives what little 



ready money he ids. His principal requirements are met 



by the provision crops which b on his holding. 



It appears that the mounta: listricts of Jamaica' 

 > ery sparse^ populated and perhaps Dot 5 percent, of the 

 land is in any cultivation at all. It has to Le Lome in mind 

 however, that tic- Blue Mountain coffee . estab- 

 lished a name lor itself iiccau-c ..t its g | flavour, and r 



a matter for regret that this cultivation is no! given greater 

 attention. 



ACCLIMATIZATION OF THE TOMATO. 



The Tomato Number of the Philippine Agricul- 

 turist and Forester (June 1915) deals, amongst other 

 mutters, with the results of acclimatization experiments 



