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The World's Commercial Products 



LIBERIAN COFFEE. FLOWERS AND RIPE FRUITS OR " CHERRIES " 



on the slender branches. The flowers occur clustered in groups of from four to sixteen in the 

 axils of the leaves. They are white in colour and of fragrant odour. The fruits, or so-called 

 " cherries," are at first a dark green, but as they ripen the colour gradually changes to yellow 

 and then to red, and at last, when thoroughly ripe, to dark crimson. The outer portion of 

 the fruit is fleshy like a cherry (whence the common name). Each fruit contains two seeds, 

 covered in turn by a dry, smooth, straw-coloured husk, known as the " parchment." The 

 seed itself is of a horny consistency, and will be perfectly familiar to everyone, as it is the 

 unroasted coffee bean of commerce, of characteristic greenish-grey colour. Between each 

 seed and the parchment is a thin membranous covering known as the " silver skin." The 

 two seeds or " beans " which each fruit contains lie with their flat sides together. It often 

 happens, however, that only one of the beans attains full development, in which case it is no 

 longer flat on one side, but more or less circular in section. Such beans form the so-called 

 " pea-berry " coffee. They are carefully separated when the crop is gathered, because they 

 fetch a higher price. In Brazil there is a very rare variety known as the Hybrico-coffee, the 

 fruit of which contains four or six seeds. 



The native country of Liberian coffee is not only the negro-republic of that name, but also 

 the other parts of the West Coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone to Angola. Its cultivation is 

 of much more recent date than Arabian coffee, because the product is less valuable ; and 

 its first appearance on the European market met with only very moderate success. The first 

 Liberian plants were introduced into Ceylon and into Java after the fearful coffee-leaf disease 

 broke out, in the years 1873 and 1878 respectively. At first it was thought that the Liberian 



