28 INTRODUCTION INTO AMERICA. 



Coffee plantation opened in Brazil being commenced in 

 that province a few years later. Its cultivation, however, 

 made little or no progress in that now world-famous 

 Coffee-growing country until 1767, when its cultivation 

 was still further extended to the province of Maranhao, 

 where itsoon increased rapidly under careful and judicious 

 management. 



In 1774 a Belgian monk, named Molke, procured 

 some plants from one of the prosperous Maranhao 

 estates, and carried them to Rio de Janeiro, the first one 

 being planted in the garden of the Capuchin monastery 

 of Adjuda, then situated in the suburbs, but now almost 

 in the centre of that city. This plant prospered so well 

 under his care, and he, becoming convinced of its future 

 importance as a valuable acquisition to the industries of 

 the country, that a few years later he cleared a planta- 

 tion for its systematic and more extensive cultivation. 

 Joachim Bruno, the then Bishop of Rio de Janeiro, also 

 perceiving the valuable benefits to be derived by the 

 country from Coffee cultivation, and to whom Brazil 

 is indebted for the introduction and cultivation of many 

 of its now valuable trees and plants, was accustomed to 

 distribute the seeds of the coffee produced on Molke's 

 plantation and the garden of the monastery among the 

 religious institutions of his diocese, personally recom- 

 mending and encouraging its cultivation by them, at the 

 same time presenting many specimens to the laity. From 

 this simple and unostentatious beginning, has grown the 

 extensive coffee-lands of to-day in Brazil, hundreds of 

 thousands of acres of land being devoted to its culture 

 at the present day, over ;^ 100,000,000 being invested in 

 the industry. 



From Brazil the coffee plant was later carried to Peru, 

 Chili, Paraguay and other South American countries. 



