COFFEE PLANTATIONS. 
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opened the first colTee-bouso in London , and twenty years 
later the first French cat'^-a wero established in Paris and 
Marseilles, 
As the demand for coffee continnally increased, the 
small province of Yemen, the only countiy which at that 
time supplied the ranrket, could no longer produce a suf- 
ficient quantity, and the high price of the article naturally 
prompted the European Governments to introduce the 
cultivation of so valuable a plant into their colonies. The 
islands of Mauritius and Bourbon took the lead in 17 18, 
and Batavia followed in 1723. Some years before, a few 
plants had been sent to Amsterdam, one of which found 
its way to Marly, where it was multiplied by seeds. 
Captain l)escleux, a French naval officer, took some of 
these young coffee-plants with him to Martinique, desirous 
of adding a new source of wealth to the resources of the 
colony. The passage was very tedious and stormy ; water 
began to fail, and all the gods seemed to conspire against 
the introduction of the coffee-tree into the New AVorld» 
But Descleux patiently endured the extremity of thirst 
that his teuder shoots might not droop for want of water, 
and succeeded in safely bringing over one single plant, 
the parent stock whence all the vast coffee plantations of 
America are said to have derived their origin. 
On examining the present state of coffee-production 
throughout the world, we find that the European markets 
obtain their chief supplies from Brazil. Java, Ceylon, and 
the West Indies ; but with regard to quality, Jlocha coffee, 
though comparatively insignificant in point of quantity, ia 
still prominent in flavour and aroma. 
When Jeft to the free growth of nature, the coffee-tree 
attains a height 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 foot-stalks, and 
