BEVERAGE PLANTS 



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Madder Family, which includes also the cinchona or quinine- 

 producing tree (see Chapter 22). Two closely related, larger 

 trees of this genus furnish the remainder of the commercial 

 coffee crop. White, five parted flowers, clustered in the axils of the 

 leaves, are borne three or four times a year; these give rise to the 

 fruits, each of which consists of two seeds surrounded by a fleshy 

 green covering which, as the seeds ripen, changes to red or 

 crimson (fig. 167). The coffee tree will flourish only on a fertile 



Fig. 167. — Coffee plants produce white flowers clustered in the axils of the 

 leaves; each fruit contains two seeds surrounded by fleshy coverings. 



soil in a hot moist climate. The trees, grown from seed, are 

 planted to a spacing of six by six feet, and begin to bear when 

 three years old. The period of best yield begins at about five 

 years of age and continues for a twenty five year period. In 

 harvesting coffee, the ripe berries are usually hand picked and the 

 fleshy pulp removed either by drying and threshing the beans 

 free from their surrounding tissues, or else by a pulping machine 

 which removes part of the fresh pulp, after which the remainder is 

 allowed to ferment and finally washed off. The greenish gray 

 seeds are then dried, graded, and packed in burlap bags for 



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