12 SHADE IN COFFEE CULTURE. 



trees. It is .very important in planting coffee trees that the roots should not be 

 injured, although in many places it is customary to cut off the tap root at the length 

 of 9 inches, and to cut off the top of the tree, but such treatment is sure to shorten 

 the life of the tree, and hence the prevalence of the belief that the profitable life of a 

 coffee tree does not exceed fifteen to twenty years. Yet I have seen trees heavily 

 laden with fruit which were so old that no one in the vicinity knew when they had 

 begun to bear fruit; but these trees had evidently been neglected. 



It is therefore safe to assume the position that both elevation and 

 shade are of importance in as far as they are required in order to secure 

 conditions of sunlight, 1 temperature, moisture, and soil favorable to 

 the growth of the coffee tree, but that neither altitude nor shadow is a 

 primary requisite for normal development and productiveness. 



EFFECT OF SHADE ON QUALITY. 



It is very evident that the tendencies of such investigations as 

 have been undertaken in coffee culture have been directed toward the 

 question of securing productiveness rather than high qualit} T , the 

 latter concomitant being generally treated as a function of climatic 

 and natural conditions over which the planter has no direct control. 

 Obviously, however, it is more profitable to grow 200 pounds per acre 

 of coffee which can be sold for 12 cents than 400 pounds, valued at 

 6 cents, the saving of half the labor of harvesting, preparing, and 

 marketing being an important item. The relation of shade, as of 

 other cultural considerations, to quality is thus an important one. 

 The production without shade of Mocha coffee and the now equally 

 prized Blue Mountain coffee of Jamaica, to say nothing of other high 

 grades of East Indian and Brazilian coffees, shows that the claim that 

 shade is a necessity to the production of coffee of good qualit}" is not 

 to be taken seriously. On the other hand, the assertion of an adverse 

 effect of shade on quality is equally unsupported by experimental 

 evidence, although the subject is one easily accessible to scientific 

 investigation. Even the general question of the agency of sunlight 

 in the formation of alkaloids and other special compounds has scarcely 

 been taken up by the physiologists and chemists, but on theoretical 

 grounds the indications are rather against shade. Fortunately two 

 instructive cases of a parallel nature have received attention, those of 

 quinine and cocaine. The investigations of Dr. Lots} T on cinchona 

 trees cultivated in Java show that the distribution of the alkaloid is 

 very definitely determined b} T sunlight, although the tree is one which, 

 like the coffee, does not flourish at low altitudes. The second instance 



investigations are needed to determine the actual thermal, actinic, and other 

 conditions of plants growing at elevations in the tropics. Although the rarer atmos- 

 phere of higher altitudes permits the escape of heat radiated from the earth and thus 

 remains relatively cool, this does not exclude the possibility that the soil and the 

 tissues of plants, besides being more readily accessible to the influences of other parts 

 of the solar spectrum, may absorb large amounts of heat. 



