46 CULTIVATION OF COFFEE IX VARIOUS COUNTRIES. 



Where, such difference is really found to exist, it will generally 

 be the result of different modes of cultivation and preparation 

 for the market, or what is known as curiiio*. 



' O 



" The quantity of rain is found to exercise a material effect 

 on the quality of the crop, and a dry climate produces a 

 better flavored and more colory bean than the excessive 

 moisture prevalent on some of the most highly esteemed 

 districts, both in the eastern and western hemispheres. It may 

 be mentioned in proof of the first of these statements, that the 

 size and appearance of the bean have been entirely changed 

 by improved or neglected cultivation, and in one estate in 

 India the beans are scarcely larger than sweet-peas, owing to 

 the proprietor having adopted a theory of never pruning the 

 trees; whilst several estates that had been neglected have 

 improved both in quality and quantity of produce to an extent 

 scarcely credible since they have been manured and pruned. 

 Seeds from Mocha, Brazil, and Java have been tried in Ceylon 

 and India, and the produce has not differed in any respect 

 from that of the plants already in existence there. t An 

 excessively moist climate has further a tendency to pro- 

 duce long, weak, elongated shoots, drooping at the extremi- 

 ties, and the foliage thin, the leaf long, but devoid of sub- 

 stance. 



" The coffee-tree flourishes in hilly districts where its root 

 can be kept dry w T hile its leaves are refreshed with frequent 

 showers. Rocky ground with rich decomposed mould in the 

 fissures agrees best with it. Though it would grow to the 

 height of fifteen or twenty feet, yet it is usually kept down 

 by pruning to that of five feet, for increasing its productive- 

 ness, as well as for the convenience of cropping. It begins 

 to yield fruit the third year, but is not generally in full 

 bearing until the fifth. In coffee husbandry the plants 

 should be placed eight feet apart, as the trees throw out 



