94 Coffee Planting. 



Where wild plants, however, are not to be had 

 merely for the trouble of collecting, others can 

 frequently be got from native gardens at a trifling 

 rate per thousand. When plants are obtainable 

 in sufficient numbers in either of these ways, a 

 nursery is but little required ; but in case the 

 planter should not be so fortunate as to find his 

 wants thus supplied, it will be advisable to begin 

 making a nursery at once. 



The. best time of year for this is the end of 

 October, when a few bushels of fresh coffee seed 

 of the new crop can be obtained from some 

 neighbouring old estate. A bushel contains about 

 40,000 berries of cherry coffee, and as most berries 

 contain two beans, the number of seeds will be 

 not far from 80,000 ; but allowing ten per cent, for 

 peaberries and imperfect beans, we ought to get 

 about 70,000 plants in the nursery from one bushel 

 of parchment. 



Seeds should be carefully selected, as far as 

 possible from healthy trees only, and should not * 

 be picked until fully ripe. They should be pulped 

 by hand, so as to avoid the injury which would be 

 incurred by a certain percentage in being passed 

 through the pulping machine. The seeds are 

 better not washed, but may be shaken up with 

 wood ashes, to dissolve the saccharine pulp adhering 

 to them, and thus prevent fermentation. They 



