TROPICAL PLANTS. 25 



Coffee. — First found in the forests of Abyssinia, beneath the tropic sun of Africa, 

 coffee was not known to the world beyond till about four hundred years ago. 

 Its cultivation was then confined to a small Arabian province, but its high value 

 induced the Dutch to introduce it into Java, in 1690, and as a rare plant into the 

 botanical gardens of Amsterdam. The New World obtained its supply from a sin- 

 gle plant, which a French naval officer carried to Martinique, in the West Indies, in 

 1720, depriving himself of water, when parching with thirst, that the tender shoot 

 might survive. From this one tree. It is said, all the American tropical colonies 

 obtained their seed, which has multiplied to such an extent that Brazil, the West 

 Indies, and Mexico supply us with as much as Java and Ceylon. These are at pres- 

 ent the great coffee countries, the product of Mocha being small in quantity. 



It is at an elevation of about four thousand feet that the coffee best thrives, for 

 here it gets shade and moisture, — which the lowlands cannot invariably supply, — 

 and a temperature changing but slightly from year to year. When a grove is 

 started in the primitive forest, many of the large trees are left standing to give the 

 required shade ; and when commenced on the low lands where there are no trees, 

 broad-leaved plants, like the banana, are planted by its side to protect from the sun. 

 The tree naturally attains a height of about twenty feet, but in the plantations is 

 pruned down, forming with its straight, horizontal branches a beautiful dome-shaped 

 mass of green. The leaves are broad and glossy green, sometimes concealing 

 the "berries," or fruit, which cluster along the slender twigs and branches. The 

 coffee is shaped like a small bean, and two of these beans are found side by side, 

 adhering by their flat surface, enclosed in a pulp covered by an outside skin, form- 

 ing a berry the size of a cherry. This is at first green, but ripens into a bright red 

 when it is gathered. 



A coffee-plantation in these upland valleys is one of the most beautiful things out 

 of doors. Wide straight paths are opened through it, above which are the dark- 

 green coffee-trees gleaming with berries, or filling the air with perfumed gales from 

 clouds of snowy blossoms. 



If there is one production over another that has especial value in Mexico, it is the 

 coffee. Nowhere in the United States can it be successfully raised, there being no 

 suitable combination of soil, climate, and allitudt.-, for its perfect growth. The range 

 of the coffee-plant extends only between the isothermals of 25° north and 30° south 

 of the equator, and it cannot be successfully grown in places where the temperature 

 is ever below 55°. Hence this leaves the United States out in the cold, and gives, 

 in the Western Hemisphere, Mexico, the West Indies, and a great portion of South 

 America, exclusive control of coffee-cultivation. 



" When grown at the extremes of climate, it is small, generally much lighter, and 

 the actual number of berries is far less than that grown in a genial climate. Expe- 

 rience has proved that from latitute 6° to 12° an elevation of from three thousand 

 to four thousand feet is the most suited, whilst beyond this, five hundred feet of 

 elevation should be allowed for every degree of latitude." Difference in locality of 

 production has little to do with the flavor of coffee, notwithstanding a general belief 

 to the contrary. In Mexico, for instance, the coffee of Colima and Michoacan is de- 

 clared to surpass that of Cordova and Tabasco ; but this superiority, if it exists, is 

 owing to better preparation for the market, or curing, and perhaps to a more thorough 

 cultivation. The quantity of rain, says one writer, is found to exercise a material 

 effect upon the quality of the crop, and a dry climate produces a better flavored 

 and more " colory " bean than that where excessive moisture prevails. 



