COFFEE CULTTJEE IN THE "WEST INDIES. 139 



with no pruning, except what the hoe does, no system of drainage, 

 no terracing, and, as I mentioned before, no manuring ! It is true 

 that on one or two estates a higher style of cultivation is being 

 inaugurated, but, as a rule, coffee cultivation in Jamaica cannot 

 compare at aU with what is being done in Ceylon. It may seem 

 strange to a Ceylon planter, but all the work of pulping, curing, 

 and preparing the coffee is done here on the estates by the super- 

 intendent or overseer, and when the coffee is sent doWn to King- 

 ston it is ready for shipment and immediately put in barrels. 

 This system, and the absence of large coffee-curing establishments, 

 must necessarily increase the cost of curing, etc., but it appears to 

 have been pursued here from time immemorial, and planters ap- 

 pear to like it. 



" Owing to the large areas nominally included under one 

 estate, the different 'coffee-fields' are sometimes two or three 

 miles away from the works, lying in ' bosoms ' of the hills, and 

 only visited for the occasional ' hoeing ' and picking of the crop. 

 Out of a nominal acreage of 1,000 acres often there are only 

 160 to 200 acres, and sometimes only about 60 or 80 acres, under 

 cultivation. The other parts are in 'reccinate' (jungle), or so 

 steep that owing to ' breakaways ' and rocks it is impossible to 

 cultivate them. This gives a Jamaica coffee estate a very patchy 

 appearance, and as cinchona has not yet be^n taken up generally 

 by planters, the uncultivated areas greatly exceed those cultivated. 

 Much more might be done with the suitable coffee lands if a regu- 

 lar system of nurseries were established and plants put out with 

 greater care. At present new lands are planted up with 'suckers' 

 (or rather seedlings) found under the trees. These are pulled, up 

 with little or no care, even when they have six or eight primaries, 

 and after being carried in bundles on heads exposed to the full 

 rays of the sun are put in holes, and allowed to take their chance 

 without shade or shelter. It is strange to hear such plants called 

 ' suckers,' but that is the orthodox term for them here, and it is 

 on such plants that Jamaica planters entirely depend for their 

 supplies and for planting up. I was much puzzled the other 

 day with a remark made me by a planter respecting these said 

 'suckers.' I asked why these self-sown plants were called 

 ' suckers,' when evidently they were nothing of the kind. I sug- 



