lilBEEIAN COFFEE BEEKIES AND SEEDS. 109 



Liberica and Cape Coast coffee to be distinct. There are three 

 trees received as Cape Coast coffee now in the Botanic Gardens, 

 about eighteen months old. They are more robust in habit even 

 than C. Liberica ; their leaves are thick and leathery, and more 

 than fifteen inches in length. No trace whatever of leaf disease 

 has appeared upon them, though young plants of C. Liberica, under 

 similar conditions, have suffered more or less from it. When 

 these plants have flowered and produced berries, it will be easier 

 to notice any fm*ther points of difference which exist between 

 them and typical plants of C. Liberica. "With regard to liabihty 

 to attack from leaf -disease, it appears that plants of Mocha coffee 

 suffer more severely from it than any others — so severely, indeed, 

 as to kill a large number of very fine young plants in a few weeks. 

 The ordinary coffee comes next, followed by C. Liberica, and with 

 Cape Coast coffee, so far as our present experience goes, at the 

 head of the list. 



" It is well known that young plants of C. Liberica suffer se- 

 Terely in nurseries from attacks of the Hemileia, but if the soil 

 is good and a little liquid manure is applied, they soon recover, 

 and after eighteen months or two years they seem to be strong 

 enough to withstand the disease and become healthy and produc- 

 tive trees. 



LLBEEIAK COFFEE BEEEIES AND SEEDS. 



" As may be supposed, from the habit and size of the trees, 

 the berries of Liberian coffee are larger and finer than those of the 

 ordinary coffee. The average length of the berry of C. Arabica sel- 

 dom exceeds half an inch, while the average length of the berry 

 of C. Liberica is nearly one inch. The pulp or outer covering of 

 the Liberian coffee berries is thick, rather fibrous, and more or 

 less fleshy, but never succulent, as in the ordinary coffee. The 

 shell just under the pulp, the indurated endocarp, is hard and 

 brittle, seldom looks clean, and is generally of a dull brown color. 

 The " silver skin," which comes next, is strong and tough, dipping 

 into the deep furrow on the face of the seed and carefully invest- 

 ing the substance of the coffee bean. In descriptive notes on 

 Liberian coffee berries and seeds, it may not be out of" place to 

 describe their character and structure with some detail, and place 



