78 



COFFEE. 



Coffee, it has been proved, can be cultivated with great ease to 

 any extent in the republic of Liberia, being indig:^nous to the 

 soil, and found in great abundance. It bears fruit from thirty to 

 forty years, and yields 10 lbs. to the shrub yearly ! A single tree 

 in the garden of Colonel Hicks, a colonist at Monrovia, is said to 

 have yielded the enormous quantity of 16 lbs. at one gathering. 

 Judge Benson, in 1850, had brought 25 acres nnder cultivation, 

 and many others had also devoted themselves to raising coffee. 

 It was estimated there were about 30,000 coffee trees planted in 

 one of the counties, that of Grand Bassa, and the quality of the 

 produce was stated to be eqnal to the best Java. 



About the villages and settlements of the Sherbro river, and 

 Sierra Leone, wild coffee-trees are very abundant. In several 

 parts of the interior, the natives make nse of ;.he shrub to fence 

 their plantations. 



Coffee has been successfully groT\-n at St. Helena, of an excel- 

 lent quality, and might be made an article of export. 



Portugal sent to tlie Grreat Exhibition, in 1851, a very valuable 

 series of coffees from many of her colonies ; of ordinary descrip- 

 tion from St. Thomas ; tolerably good from the Cape de Yerd 

 islands ; bad from Timor ; worse (but curious from the very small 

 size of the berry) from Mozambique ; good from Angola ; and 

 excellent from Madeira. 



Aden, alias Mocha coffee, is, along with the other coffees of the 

 E-ed Sea, sent ffi'st to Bombay by Arab ships, where it is " gar- 

 belled," or picked, previously to its being exported to England. 



An excellent sample of coffee, apparently of the Barbera 

 (Abyssinia) variety, was contributed to the Grreat Exhibition from 

 -NTorfolk Island. It was of good color, well adapted for roasting, 

 and a most desirable novelty from that quarter. 



Dr. Grardner, of Ceylon, has taken out a patent for preparing 

 the coffee leaf in a manner to afford a beverage like tea, that is by 

 infusion, forming an agreeable refreshing and nutritive article 

 of diet." An infusion of the coffee-leaf has long been an article 

 of universal consumption amongst the natives of parts of Suma- 

 tra ; wherever the coffee is gTOwn, the leaf has become one of the 

 necessaries of life, which the natives regard as indispensable. 



The coffee-plant, in a congenial soil and climate, exhibits great 

 luxuriance in its foliage, throwing out abundance of suckers and 

 lateral stems, especially when from any cause the main stem is 

 thrown out of the perpendicular, to which it is very liable from 

 its great superincumbent weight compared with the hold of its 

 root in the ground. The native planters, availing themselves of 

 this propensity, often give this plant a considerable inclination, 

 not only to increase the foliage, but to obtain new fruit-bearing 

 stems, when the old ones become unproductive. It is also found 

 desirable to limit the height of the plant by lopping off the top to 

 increase the produce, and facilitate the collecting it, and Iresh 

 sprouts in abundance are the certain consequence. These are so 

 many causes of the development of a vegetation Avhich becomes 



