302 The Composition of the Coffee Berry 



every year a certain amount of crop falls off and that in certain cases, 

 on certain types of soil, the trees fail to hold their crop late in the 

 season. This last year, 1913, was a dry one with also a large crop, and 

 it was most noticeable that many of the berries failed to complete the 

 last stage and would not ripen, but had to be picked and pulped while 

 still hard and yellow instead of soft and red. The moisture factor has 

 undoubtedly some bearing upon phenomena such as these, and it is 

 possible that they can be controlled by methods of cultivation and the 

 application of fertilisers which tend to increase the root area or con- 

 serve the soil moisture. The results so far obtained suggest at any rate 

 interesting side lines of research, such as the above and the study of 

 the physical condition of different types of coffee soils and their moisture 

 content at different times of the year in the relation to the ability of 

 the coffee grown on them to hold and ripen up a big crop. 



