BRAZILIAN COFFEES. 1 7 _,' 



with other plants — principally corn and beans — as is 

 usually the custom, it is annually cleared around the 

 roots, a compost of dead leaves and coffee-hulls being 

 placed about them. In some districts — notably Sao 

 Paulo — many of the trees have been producing con- 

 tinuously for twenty-five years, still presenting a vigorous 

 appearance and yielding an average each year, while others 

 that had attained an age of thirty-five years were cut off 

 within eighteen inches of the ground, and two years later 

 put forth new branches, presenting all the appearance of 

 thriving trees, bearing fruit like much younger trees. 

 This is a new and interesting feature in the management 

 of the old trunks of coffee trees, one having the advan- 

 tage of new growth being secured in one-half the time it 

 could be obtained from seedlings, as even should these 

 stumps require to be dug around and manured fre- 

 quently, it is much more preferable and profitable to the 

 trouble, expense and uncertainty connected with the rais- 

 ing of new plants from seed, and certainly presents greater 

 advantages over the latter method. In Brazil the pick- 

 ing is latterly — since the abolishment of slavery — done 

 by contract with the fazendon, or proprietor, who only 

 requires the services of the pickers to gather the 

 berries from the trees, for which labor they are paid 

 what is considered to be one-half the value of the 

 crude coffee that is gathered by them. The estimate 

 placed upon an alqucrie (bushel) of crude berries 

 being about seventy-five cents, which, unless the crop is 

 good, ordinary hands do not gather more than two bush- 

 els per diem ; yet, again, when the crops are large, an 

 industrious and skillful picker can average from five to 

 eight bushels without effort. The berries are picked by 

 band, the ground being raked clean under the trees pre- 

 vious to picking, an immense, broad, flat receptacle of 



