COFFEE CULTURE IN BRAZIL AND ELSEWHERE. 



565 



thought of redeeming or fertilizing the exhausted land. One of the long-sighted 

 reforms undertaken by our host, however, is the manuring of all the old deserted plan- 

 tations on his estate. He has already a number of vigorous young plantations which 

 promise to be as good as if a virgin forest had been sacrificed to produce them. He 

 wishes not only to preserve the wood on his own estate, and to show that agriculture 

 need not be pursued at the expense of taste and beauty, but also to remind his coun- 

 trymen that, extensive as their forests are, they will not last forever; and that it will 

 be necessary to emigrate before long to find new coffee grounds, if the old ones are to 

 be considered worthless." 



In the West Indies the culture of coffee has greatly diminished. Hayti, which 

 before the revolution of 1791 exported to France 76,000,000 pounds, now produces 

 less than half that quantity. The British West Indies, which in 1827 exported nearly 

 30,000,000 pounds, now produce but 4,000,000. Cuba, the product of which in 1833 

 was 40,000,000 pounds, now produces less than half as much. This is, however, 

 owing to the fact, that it is found that under their system of slave-labor the cultivation 

 of sugar, for which the climate is so favorable, has been found more profitable than 

 that of coffee. In Ceylon the production of coffee has increased enormously within 

 the present generation. It rose from less than 2,000,000 pounds in 1833 to more 

 than 67,000,000 pounds in 1857; since which time it has still further increased. 



When left to the free growth of nature, the coffee-tree attains a hight of from fifteen 

 to twenty feet; in the plantations, however, the tops are generally cut off in order to 

 promote the growth of the lower branches, and to facilitate the gathering of the crop. 

 Its leaves are opposite, evergreen, and not unlike those of the bay tree ; its blossoms 

 are white, sitting on short footstalks, and resembling the flower of the jasmine. The 

 fruit which succeeds is a green berry, ripening into red, of the size and form of a large 

 cherry, and having a pale, insipid, and somewhat glutinous pulp, enclosing two hard 

 and oval seeds or beans, which are too well known to require any further description. 

 The tree is in full bearing from its fourth or fifth year, and continues during a long 

 scries of seasons to furnish an annual produce of about a pound and a half of beans. 

 The seeds are known to be ripe when the berries assume a dark red color, and if not 

 then gathered, will drop from the trees. 



The planters in Arabia do not pluck the fruit, but place cloths for its reception 

 beneath the trees, which they shake, and the ripened berries drop readily. These are 

 afterwards spread upon mats, and exposed to the sun until perfectly dry, when the 

 husk is broken with large heavy rollers made either of wood or of stone. The coffee, 

 thus cleared of its husk, is again dried thoroughly in the sun, that it may not be liable 

 to heat when packed for shipment. This method may, in some measure, account for 

 the superior quality of the Arabian coffee ; but in the large plantations of Brazil, Java, 

 Ceylon, and other European colonies, it is necessary to follow a more expeditious 

 plan, to pluck the berries from the trees as soon as they ripen, and immediately to 

 pass them through a pulping mill, consisting of a horizontal fluted roller turned by a 

 crank, and acting against a movable breast-board, so placed as to prevent the passage 

 of whole berries between itself and the roller. The pulp is then separated from the 

 seeds by washing them, and the latter are spread out in the sun to dry ; after which 

 the membranous skin, or parchment, which immediately covers the beans, is removed 

 by means of heavy rollers or stamping. 



