6 COFFEE. 



rows, however, being about this distance apart. They begin 

 bearing at the age of three to four years, their product annually 

 increasing, and at six years they may be said to be in full bearing. 

 The yield varies greatly, hojvever, in different countries, being in- 

 fluenced by modes of culture and changes in the character of the 

 seasons ; taking one year with another a tree in full bearing pro- 

 duces from two to three pounds per annum. Careful pruning is 

 required to develop and maintain the productive capacity of the 

 trees. Left to themselves they would grow to a considerable 

 height ; but when about eight feet high the tops are cut off, which 

 causes them to spread instead of growing taller, and afterward 

 they are kept pruned down to about eight feet, and in some coun- 

 tries, notably Ceylon, even lower. Within recent years pruning 

 in Ceylon has been lighter than was formerly the custom. A 

 heavily pruned tree is regarded as most liable to be attacked with 

 leaf disease. Regarding the Coffcea Liberica, a planter in the 

 low country of Ceylon says : " Topping the Liberian coffee-tree 

 is a very objectionable operation. The Arabian coffee-plant can 

 be forced into an artificial form without the sacrifice of any of 

 its crop, because there is a period, longer or shorter, between the 

 crop and the blossom, in which old wood can be eliminated, but I 

 cannot very clearly see how the artificial form is to be advan- 

 tageously imposed on a tree that carries its full crop all the year 

 round, and on which pruning can only be carried out at a sacrifice 

 of crop. One of the objects of forcing Arabian coffee into the 

 artificial form is to get the whole growth under hand, so as to 

 facilitate and cheapen the gathering of the crop ; but the average 

 Liberian tree puts out its. first branches at a height of stem little 

 short of that at which the Arabian plant is usually topped, so 

 that this end cannot be answered by topping at six or seven feet. 

 I do not insist on these objections as the result of experimental 

 study of the tree, but so far as I have gone they seem to me to 

 be well founded." The average diameter of the trunk in full- 

 bearing trees is about the size of a man's wrist. They bear a 

 profusion of dark green, glossy leaves, and the fruit or berry 

 forms on the woody stems, usually at the base of these leaves. 



A dissection of the fruit or berry, which, when ripe, is red in 

 color and much resembles a large cranberry, or medium-sized 



