VARIETIES OF PLANT INFLUENCE OF CULTIVATION. 9 



quantities of the latter in the market, and also to the 

 planters in India having bestowed more care on the 

 preparation in order to get a name. The quality of 

 coffee is mainly dependent on the soil and general cul- 

 tivation, and slightly on the climate, the quantity of 

 rain being found to exercise a material effect on the 

 quality of the crop, and a dry climate producing a 

 better flavoured and more coloury bean than the ex- 

 cessive moisture prevalent on some of the most highly 

 esteemed districts, both in the east and western hemi- 

 spheres. It may be mentioned in proof of the first of 

 these statements, that the size and appearance of the 

 bean has 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 prun- 

 ing the trees, whilst several estates in Wynaad and 

 Ceylon, 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 plant already in ex- 

 istence there. A moist climate has further a tendency 

 to produce long, weak, elongated shoots, drooping 

 at the extremities, and the foliage is thin, the leaf long, 

 but devoid of substance. The real Mocha coffee is 

 cured in an entirely different mode from that practised 

 in the colonies. The berries when ripe are picked, 

 and spread out on large drying grounds, and are dried 

 with the pulp and parchment on the bean ; when 

 thoroughly dry the berries are passed under wooden 



