COFFEE. 



l31 



this state^ under the name of Coffee in the husk/^ it is 

 occasionally imported. 



When freed from the husk, the coffee-seeds, or berries, as 

 they are commonly called, are hard and horny, somewhat 

 resembling the texture of parchment ; in the fresh samples 

 from the West Indies they are of a pale-green colour, but 

 in the Mochas, and other Asiatic varieties, they are of a yel- 

 lowish stone-colour, which is acquired by age, to which pro- 

 bably much of their superior quality is also referable. These 

 berries are principally composed of a mass of albumen, 

 which is rolled up, and encloses the small cotyledons and 

 embryo ; they are convex on the outer side, and flat on the 

 inner side, with a deep groove at the folding in of the albu- 

 minous coating; the two seeds lie within the pericarp, with 

 their flat surfaces applied to each other. 



The Coffee shrub is now cultivated in almost every tro- 

 pical country; we receive it from the East and West Indies 

 and South America. It is usually grown in plantations, and 

 hand-gathered or shaken from the trees when ripe. Latterly 

 the plantations in Ceylon have been infested with a species 

 of Coccus (called the brown-scale), an insect allied to that 

 which infests our pear-trees, to the cochineal-insect, and to 

 the well-known lady-bird fly. 



