CHAPTER XIV. 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 



NOTWITHSTANDING what has already been said, some of 

 the readers of this may be glad of further assistance in 

 forming their judgment on the merits and demerits of 

 the pursuit known as Coffee Planting, and for their 

 benefit the following extracts are appended. A writer 

 in his " Impressions of the West Indies," says : 



" Anything in the way of cultivation more beauti- 

 ful or more fragrant than a coffee plantation I had not 

 conceived, and oft did I say to myself that if ever I 

 became, from health or otherwise, a cultivator of the 

 soil within the tropics, I would cultivate the coffee 

 plant, even although I did so irrespective altogether of 

 the profits that might be derived from so doing. 

 Much has been written, and not without justice, of the 

 rich fragrance of an orange grove, and at home we 

 ofttimes hear of the sweet odours of a bean field. I 

 have, too, often enjoyed in the Carse of Stirling, and 

 elsewhere in Scotland, the balmy breezes as they swept 

 over the latter, particularly when the sun had burst 

 out with unusual strength after a shower of rain. I 

 have likewise in Martinique, Santa Cruz, Jamaica, and 

 Cuba inhaled the breezes wafted from the orangeries, 

 but not for a moment would I compare either with the 

 exquisite aromatic odours from a coffee plantation in 



