18 SHADE IN COFFEE CULTURE. 



the conditions are too severe the growing of coffee becomes, of course, 

 unprofitable; but there are undoubtedly localities where all other 

 requirements being present shade or irrigation, or both, may be wisely 

 considered b}^ the planter. Thus the coffee of Arabia is produced 

 under conditions apparently quite different from those of other coffee- 

 growing countries. The climate is more or less arid and the coffee is 

 mostly grown under irrigation on terraced hillsides, at an elevation of 

 3,000 feet or less, but only at the lower altitudes is it considered 

 necessary to use shade trees, and even there the purpose of the shade 

 is the maintenance of a moist atmosphere rather than the protection 

 of the coffee from the sun. 



In places much exposed to the south, they plant their coffee trees in regular lines, 

 sheltered by a kind of poplar tree which extends its branches on every side to a great 

 distance, and affords a very thick shade. Without such precaution they suppose the 

 excessive heat of the sun would parch and dry the blossoms so that they would not 

 be succeeded by any fruit, 1 



The destruction of the coffee crop through the withering of the 

 flowers by a hot, dry day has occurred several times in Liberia, 

 where the coffee is often brought suddenly into blossom by a rain 

 near the end of the dry season. 



Returning to Arabia, it is further to be noted that the dry climate 

 makes it possible to permit the coffee to become thoroughly ripe on 



x La Roque, as translated in Ellis's Historical Account of Coffee, London, 1774. 

 This quotation is preceded by a quaintly interesting note on the Arab method of 

 irrigating coffee: 



He relates that the coffee tree is there raised from seed, which they sow in nurs- 

 eries, and plant them out as they have occasion. They chuse for their plantations a 

 moist, shady situation, on a small eminence, or at the foot of the mountains, and 

 take great care to conduct from the mountains little rills of water, in small gutters or 

 channels, to the roots of the trees; for it is absolutely necessary they should be con- 

 stantly watered in order to produce and ripen the fruit. For that purpose, when 

 they remove or transplant the tree, they make a trench of three feet wide and five 

 feet deep, which they line or cover with stones, that the water may the more readily 

 sink deep into the earth, with which the trench is filled, in order to preserve the 

 moisture from evaporating. When they observe that there is a good deal of fruit 

 upon the tree and that it is nearly ripe, they turn off the water from the roots, to 

 lessen the succulency in the fruit, which too much water would occasion. 



In view of the fact that the superiority of the genuine Mocha is still generally 

 admitted, it is strange that no modern investigation of the Arabian conditions and 

 methods of culture has been attempted, particularly in view of the fact that our 

 imperfect accounts by no means agree. Thus another French traveler, Roland, as 

 quoted by Shortt, gives a very different impression of the methods of irrigation and 

 says nothing about shade: 



In the interior of Arabia there are hill villages maintained solely by the produce 

 of their coffee, which is grown on terraces, and planted so densely that the rays of 

 the sun can hardly penetrate the groves. Although for the most part coffee in Arabia 

 is not irrigated, but made dependent on the rains, in these parts some of the planta- 

 tions are systematically watered by means of large reservoirs formed on the heights, 

 in which spring as well as rain water is collected" and distributed over the terraces; 

 and the coffee thus watered produces a second crop in the year, but the fruit only 

 ripens well during the first crop, whilst that of the second is cast away in an immature 

 state and is consequently always inferior to the first. 



