174 BRAZILIAN COFFEES. 



plantations extend with the greatest regularity, as far as 

 the eye can reach, presenting a most attractive and pleas- 

 ing effect, some fazendas (plantations) having as many 

 as 350,000 trees, others again having as low as 30,000, 

 but all averaging from 500 to 800 trees to the half fane- 

 gada (acre), the average annual produce of each tree 

 ranging from one to seven pounds of prepared coffee, or 

 about one to one and a half pounds per picking of 

 cleaned coffee. The plantations situated on high lands 

 and exposed to the east being the most productive, but 

 prospering equally well in the lowland districts, although 

 the product is much inferior in quality and flavor. 

 The trees are grown in lines and squares, the face of 

 the country in the coffee-growing districts being undulat- 

 ing and hilly, a plantation of coffee being at every season 

 of the year an object of beauty and interest. The leaves 

 are perennially bright and polished, resembling those of 

 the laurel when in full bloom, but of a much darker 

 green in color, the flowers or blossoms of the purest 

 white, growing in tufts along the top of the branches, and 

 blooming so suddenly that in the morning the trees 

 look as if snow had fallen on them in flaky wreaths 

 during the night, their jasmine-like perfume being power- 

 ful enough to be oppressive, but lasting only for a single 

 day, being succeeded immediately by branches of imma- 

 ture green and the dark-crimson hull of the ripe berries — 

 resembling cherries in their brilliancy and size — and 

 following each other in quick succession, which added to 

 the thick foliage of the trees presents altogether a magni- 

 ficent spectacle. 



In Brazil the coffee trees continue to bear from fifteen 

 to twenty years, but it is found necessary to the healthy 

 development of the plants to keep the ground in good 

 condition, and when the interspaces are not cultivated 



