478 
COITEE PLANTATIONS. 
when the first plantations were made near Chaeao. The 
finest coffee-plantations are now found in the savannah of 
Ocumare, near Salamanca, and at Rincon, in the mountain- 
ous countries of Los Mariches, San Antonio Hatillo, and 
Los Budares. The coffee of the three last mentioned 
places, situated eastward of Caracas, is of a superior quality; 
but the trees bear a smaller quantity, which is attributed to 
the height of the spot and the coolness of the climate. 
The greater plantations of the province of Venezuela (as 
Aguacates, near Valencia and Rincon) yield in good years 
a produce of three thousand quintals. 
The extreme predilection entertained in this province for 
the culture of the coffee-tree is partly founded on the cir- 
cumstance that the berry can be preserved during a great 
number of years ; whereas, notwithstanding every possible 
care, cacao spoils in the warehouses after ten or twelve 
months. During the long dissensions of the European 
powers, at a time when Spain was too weak to protect the 
commerco of her colonies, industry was directed in pre- 
ference to- productions of which the sale was less urgent, 
and could await the chances of political and commercial 
events. 1 remarked that in the coffee-plantations the- 
nurseries are formed not so much by collecting together 
young plants, accidentally rising under trees. which have 
yielded a crop, as by exposing the seeds of coffee to germi- 
nation during five (lays, in heaps, between plantain leaves. 
These seeds are taken out of the pulp, hut yet retaining a 
part of it adherent to them. When the seed has germi- 
nated it is sown, and it produces plants capable of bearing 
the heat of the sun better than those which spring up in 
the shade in coffee-plantations. In this country five thou- 
sand three hundred coffee-trees are generally planted in a 
fanega of ground, amounting to five thousand four hundred 
and seventy-six square toises. This land, il it he capable 
of artificial irrigation, costs five hundred piastres in the 
northern part of the province. The coffee-tree flowers only 
iu the second year, and its flowering lasts only twenty-four 
hours. At this time the shrub has a charming appearance ; 
and, when seen from alar, it appears covered with snow. 
The produce of the third year becomes very abundant. In 
plantations well weeded and watered, and recently culti- 
