The coffee plant prefers the
cool, moist, frost-free climate found at higher altitudes in the tropics
and subtropics. Optimum growing conditions include: temperature of
about 75°F (24°C); well-distributed annual rainfall of about 50 in. (127
cm) with a short dry season; and fertile, deep, well-drained soil,
especially of volcanic origin. While coffee can be grown from sea level
to c.6,000 ft (1,830 m), and
grades are generally produced above 1,500 ft (460 m). Strong winds
limit coffee production; coffee is often grown in the shelter of taller
trees. A coffee tree yields its maximum sometime between its fifth and
tenth year and may bear for about 30 years.
Coffee's earliest human use may have been as a food; a
ball of the crushed fruit molded with fat was a day's ration for certain
African nomads. Later, wine was made from the fermented husks and
pulps. Coffee was known in 15th-century Arabia; from there it spread to
Egypt and Turkey, overcoming religious and political opposition to
become popular among Arabs.
Today the commercial growers of coffee on a large scale practise intensive
cultivation methods, giving the same care to preparing their plantations and
maintaining their trees as do other growers of grains and fruits. As in the more
advanced methods of arboriculture, every effort is made to obtain the maximum
production of quality coffee consistent with the smallest outlay of money and
labor. Experimental stations in various parts of the world are constantly
working to improve methods and products, and to develop types that will
resist disease and adverse climatic conditions.
While cultivation methods in the different producing countries vary in detail
of practise, the principles are unchanging. Where methods do differ, it is owing
principally to local economic conditions, such as the supply and cost of labor,
machinery, fertilizers, and similar essential factors.
Implements Used in
Early Arabian Coffee Culture
1, Plow. 2 and 3, Mattocks. 4, Hatchet
and sickle. Top, Seeder Implement
Soil. Rocky ground that pulverizes easily—and, if
possible, of volcanic origin—is best for coffee; also, soil rich in decomposed
mold. In Brazil the best soil is known as
terra roxa, a topsoil of red
clay three or four feet thick with a gravel subsoil.
Climate. The natural habitat of the coffee tree (all
species) is tropical Africa, where the climate is hot and humid, and the soil
rich and moist, yet sufficiently friable to furnish well drained seed beds.
These conditions must be approximated when the tree is grown in other countries.
Because the trees and fruit generally can not withstand frost, they are
restricted to regions where the mean annual temperature is about 70° F., with an
average minimum about 55°, and an average maximum of about 80°. Where grown in
regions subject to more or less frost, as in the northernmost parts of Brazil's
coffee-producing district, which lie almost within the south temperate zone, the
coffee trees are sometimes frosted, as was the case in 1918, when about forty
percent of the São Paulo crop and trees suffered.
Generally speaking, the most suitable climate for coffee is a temperate one
within the tropics; however, it has been successfully cultivated between
latitudes 28° north and 38° south.
Rainfall. Although able to grow satisfactorily only
on well drained land, the coffee tree requires an abundance of water, about
seventy inches of rainfall annually, and must have it supplied evenly throughout
the year. Prolonged droughts are fatal; while, on the other hand, too great a
supply of water tends to develop the wood of the tree at the expense of the
flowers and fruit, especially in low-lying regions.
Altitude. Coffee is found growing in all altitudes,
from sea-level up to the frost-line, which is about 6,000 feet in the tropics.
Robusta and
liberica varieties of coffee do best in regions from
sea-level up to 3,000 feet, while
arabica flourishes better at the higher
levels.
Carvalho says that the coffee plant needs sun, but that a few hours daily
exposure is sufficient. Hilly ground has the advantage of offering the choice of
a suitable exposure, as the sun shines on it for only a part of the day. Whether
it is the early morning or the afternoon sun that enables the plant to attain
its optimum conditions is a question of locality.
Cross Section of
Mountain Slope in Yemen, Arabia, Showing Coffee Terraces
These
miniature plantations are found chiefly along the caravan route between Hodeida
and Sanaa
Clearing Virgin
Forest for a Coffee Estate in Mexico
Coffee Nursery Under
a Bamboo Roof in Colombia
THE FIRST STEPS IN COFFEE GROWING
In Mexico, Romero tells us, the highlands of Soconusco have the advantage
that the sun does not shine on the trees during the whole of the day. On the
higher slopes of the Cordilleras—from 2,500 feet above sea-level—clouds prevail
during the summer season, when the sun is hottest, and are frequently present in
the other seasons, after ten o'clock in the morning. These keep the trees from
being exposed to the heat of the sun during the whole of the day. Perhaps to
this circumstance is due the superior excellence of certain coffees grown in
Mexico, Colombia, and Sumatra at an altitude of 3,000 feet to 4,000 feet above
sea-level.
Richard Spruce, the botanist, in his notes on South America, as quoted by
Alfred Russel Wallace,
[315]
refers to "a zone of the equatorial Andes ranging between 4,000 and 6,000 feet
altitude, where the best flavored coffee is grown."
Propagation. Coffee trees are grown most generally
from seeds selected from trees of known productivity and longevity; although in
some parts of the world propagation is done from shoots or cuttings. The seed
method is most general, however, the seeds being either propagated in nursery
beds, or planted at once in the spot where the mature tree is to stand. In the
latter case—called planting at stake—four or five seeds are planted, much as
corn is sown; and after germination, all but the strongest plant are
removed.
Where the nursery method is followed, the choicest land of the plantation is
chosen for its site; and the seeds are planted in forcing beds, sometimes called
cold-frames. When the plants are to be transplanted direct to the plantation,
the seeds are generally sown six inches apart and in rows separated by the same
distance, and are covered with only a slight sprinkling of earth. When the
plants are to be transferred from the first bed to another, and then to the
plantation, the seeds are sown more thickly; and the plants are "pricked" out as
needed, and set out in another forcing bed.
During the six to seven weeks required for the coffee seed to germinate, the
soil must be kept moist and shaded and thoroughly weeded. If the trees are to be
grown without shade, the young plants are gradually exposed to the sun, to
harden them, before they begin their existence in the plantation proper.
Coffee Tree Nursery,
Panajabal, Pochuta, Guatemala
Drying Grounds and
Factory in the Preanger Regency
Native Transport,
Field to Factory, at Dramaga, Near Buitenzorg
COFFEE SCENES IN JAVA,
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES
Considerable experimental work has been done in renewing trees by grafting,
notably in Java; but practically all commercial planters follow the seed
method.
Coffee Growing Under
Shade, Porto Rico
Preparing the Plantation. Before transplanting time
has come, the plantation itself has been made ready to receive the young plants.
Coffee plantations are generally laid out on heavily wooded and sloping lands,
most often in forests on mountainsides and plateaus, where there is an abundance
of water, of which large quantities are used in cultivating the trees and in
preparing the coffee beans for market. The soil most suitable is friable, sandy,
or even gravelly, with an abundance of rocks to keep the soil comparatively cool
and well drained, as well as to supply a source of food by action of the
weather. The ideal soil is one that contains a large proportion of potassium and
phosphoric acid; and for that reason, the general practise is to burn off the
foliage and trees covering the land and to use the ashes as fertilizer.
In preparing the soil for the new plantation under the intensive cultivation
method, the surface of the land is lightly plowed, and then followed up with
thorough cultivation. When transplanting time comes, which is when the plant is
about a year old, and stands from twelve to eighteen inches high with its first
pairs of primary branches, the plants are set out in shallow holes at regular
intervals of from eight to twelve, or even fourteen, feet apart. This gives room
for the root system to develop, provides space for sunlight to reach each tree,
and makes for convenience in cultivating and harvesting.
Liberica and
robusta type trees require more room than
arabica. When set twelve
feet apart, which is the general practise, with the same distance maintained
between rows, there are approximately four hundred and fifty trees to the acre.
In the triangle, or hexagon, system the trees are planted in the form of an
equilateral triangle, each tree being the same distance (usually eight or nine
feet) from its six nearest neighbors. This system permits of 600 to 800 trees
per acre.
Shade and Wind Breaks. Strong, chilly winds and
intensely hot sunlight are foes of coffee trees, especially of the
arabica variety. Accordingly, in most countries it is customary to
protect the plantation with wind-breaks consisting of rugged trees, and to shade
the coffee by growing trees of other kinds between the rows. The shade trees
serve also to check soil erosion; and in the case of the leguminous kinds, to
furnish nutriment to the soil. Coffee does best in shade such as is afforded by
the silk oak
(
Grevillea robusta). In
Shade in Coffee Culture (
Bulletin
25, 1901, division of botany, United States Department of Agriculture), O.F.
Cook goes extensively into this subject.
The methods employed in the care of a coffee plantation do not differ
materially from those followed by advanced orchardists in the colder fruit-belts
of the world. After the young plants have gained their start, they are
cultivated frequently, principally to keep out the weeds, to destroy pests, and
to aerate the earth. The implements used range from crude hand-plows to
horse-drawn cultivators.
Fertilizing. Comparatively little fertilizing is
done on plantations established on virgin soil until the trees begin to bear,
which occurs when they are about three years of age. Because the coffee tree
takes potash, nitrogen, and phosphoric acid from the soil, the scheme of
fertilizing is to restore these elements. The materials used to replace the
soil-constituents consist of stable manure, leguminous plants, coffee-tree
prunings, leaves, certain weeds, oil cake, bone and fish meal, guano, wood
ashes, coffee pulp and parchment, and such chemical fertilizers as
superphosphate of lime, basic slag, sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of lime,
sulphate of potash, nitrate of potash, and similar materials.
The relative values of these fertilizers depend largely upon local climate
and soil conditions, the supply, the cost, and other like factors. The chemical
fertilizers are coming into increasing use in the larger and more economically
advanced producing countries. Brazil, particularly, is showing in late years a
tendency toward their adoption to make up for the dwindling supply of the
so-called natural manures. As the coffee tree grows older, it requires a larger
supply of fertilizer.
The Famous Boekit
Gompong Estate, Near Padang, on Sumatra's West Coast
Showing the
healthy, regular appearance of well-cultivated coffee bushes, twenty-six years
old. Also note the line of feathery bamboo wind-breaks
Pruning. On the larger plantations, pruning is an
important part of the cultivation processes. If left to their own devices,
coffee trees sometimes grow as high as forty feet, the strength being absorbed
by the wood, with a consequent scanty production of fruit. To prevent this
undesirable result, and to facilitate picking, the trees on the more modern
plantations are pruned down to heights ranging from six to twelve feet. Except
for pruning the roots when transplanting, the tree is permitted to grow until
after producing its first full crop before any cutting takes place. Then, the
branches are severely cut back; and thereafter, pruning is carried on annually. Topping
and pruning begin between the first and the second years.
Coffee Estate in
Antioquia, Colombia, Showing Wind-Breaks
Coffee trees as a rule produce full crops from the sixth to the fifteenth
year, although some trees have given a paying crop until twenty or thirty years
old. Ordinarily the trees bear from one-half pound to eight pounds of coffee
annually, although there are accounts of twelve pounds being obtained per tree.
Production is mostly governed by the cultivation given the tree, and by climate,
soil, and location. When too old to bear profitable yields, the trees on
commercial plantations are cut down to the level of the ground; and are renewed
by permitting only the strongest sprout springing out of the stump to
mature.
Catch Crops. On some plantations it has become the
practise to grow catch crops between the rows of coffee trees, both as a means
of obtaining additional revenue and to shade the young coffee plants. Corn,
beans, cotton, peanuts, and similar plants are most generally used.
Pests and Diseases. The coffee tree, its wood,
foliage, and fruit, have their enemies, chief among which are insects, fungi,
rodents (the "coffee rat"), birds, squirrels, and—according to
Rossignon—elephants, buffalo, and native cattle, which have a special liking for
the tender leaves of the coffee plant. Insects and fungi are the most bothersome
pests on most plantations. Among the insects, the several varieties of borers
are the principal foes, boring into the wood of the trunk and branches to lay
larvae which sap the life from the tree. There are scale insects whose
excretion forms a black mold on the leaves and affects the nutrition by cutting
off the sunlight. Numerous kinds of beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and
crickets attack the coffee-tree leaves, the so-called "leaf-miner" being
especially troublesome. The Mediterranean fruit fly deposits
larvae which
destroy or lessen the worth of the coffee berry by tunneling within and eating
the contents of the parchment. The coffee-berry beetle and its grub also live
within the coffee berry.
Among the most destructive fungoid diseases is the so-called Ceylon leaf
disease, which is caused by the
Hemileia vastatrix, a fungus related to
the wheat rust. It was this disease which ruined the coffee industry in Ceylon,
where it first appeared in 1869, and since has been found in other
coffee-producing regions of Asia and Africa. America has a similar disease,
caused by the
Sphaerostilbe flavida, that is equally destructive if not
vigilantly guarded against. (>See
chapters XV and
XVI.)
The coffee-tree roots also are subject to attack. There is the root disease,
prevalent in all countries, and for which no cause has yet been definitely
assigned, although it has been determined that it is of a fungoid nature.
Brazil, and some other American coffee-producing countries, have a serious
disease caused by the eelworm, and for that reason called the eelworm
disease.
Coffee planters combat pests and diseases principally with sprays, as in
other lines of advanced arboriculture. It is a constant battle, especially on
the large commercial plantations, and constitutes a large item on the expense
sheet.
Cultivation by Countries
Coffee-cultivation methods vary somewhat in detail in the different producing
countries. The foregoing description covers the underlying principles in
practise throughout the world; while the following is intended to show the local
variations in vogue in the principal countries of production, together with
brief descriptions of the main producing districts, the altitudes, character of
soil, climate, and other factors that are peculiar to each country. In general,
they are considered in the order of their relative importance as producing
countries.
Brazil. In Brazil, the Giant of South America, and
the world's largest coffee producer, the methods of cultivation naturally have
reached a high point of development, although the soil and the climate were not
at first regarded as favorable. The year 1723 is generally accepted as the date
of the introduction of the coffee plant into Brazil from French Guiana. Coffee
planting was slow in developing, however, until 1732, when the governor of the
states of Pará and Maranhao urged its cultivation. Sixteen years later, there
were 17,000 trees in Pará. From that year on, slow but steady progress was made;
and by 1770, an export trade had been begun from the port of Pará to countries
in Europe.
Up-to-Date Weeding
and Harrowing, São Paulo
The spread of the industry began about this time. The coffee tree was
introduced into the state of Rio de Janeiro in 1770. From there its cultivation
was gradually extended into the states of São Paulo, Minãs Geraes, Bahia, and
Espirito Santo, which have become the great coffee-producing sections of Brazil.
The cultivation of the plant did not become especially noteworthy until the
third decade of the nineteenth century. Large crops were gathered in the season
of 1842–43; and by the middle of the century, the plantations were producing
annually more than 2,000,000 bags.
General View of
Fazenda Dumont, Ribeirao Preto, São Paulo, Brazil
Photograph by
Courtesy of J. Aron & Co.
Brazil's commercial coffee-growing region has an estimated area of
approximately 1,158,000 square miles, and extends from the river Amazon to the
southern border of the state of São Paulo, and from the Atlantic coast to the
western boundary of the state of Matto Grosso. This area is larger than that
section of the United States lying east of the Mississippi River, with Texas
added. In every state of the republic, from Ceará in the north to Santa
Catharina in the south, the coffee tree can be cultivated profitably; and is, in
fact, more or less grown in every state, if only for domestic use. However,
little attention is given to coffee-growing in the north, except in the state of
Pernambuco, which has only about 1,500,000 trees, as compared, with the
764,000,000 trees of São Paulo in 1922.
The chief coffee-growing plantations in Brazil are situated on plateaus
seldom less than 1,800 feet above sea-level, and ranging up to 4,000 feet. The
mean annual temperature is approximately 70° F., ranging from a mean of 60.8° in
winter to a mean of 72° in summer. The temperature has been known, however, to
register 32° in winter and 97.7° in summer.
While coffee trees will grow in almost any part of Brazil, experience
indicates that the two most fertile soils, the
terra roxa and the
massape, lie in the "coffee belts." The
terra roxa is a dark red
earth, and is practically confined to São Paulo, and to it is due the
predominant coffee productivity of that state.
Massape is a yellow, dark
red—or even black—soil, and occurs more or less contiguous to the
terra
roxa. With a covering of loose sand, it makes excellent coffee land.
Brazil planters follow the nursery-propagated method of planting, and
cultivate, prune, and spray their trees liberally. Transplanting is done in the
months from November to February.
Coffee-growing profits have shown a decided falling off in Brazil in recent
years. In 1900 it was not uncommon for a coffee estate to yield an annual profit
of from 100 to 250 percent. Ten years later the average returns did not exceed
twelve percent.
FAZENDA GUATAPARA, SÃO PAULO,
BRAZIL, WITH 800,000 TREES IN BEARING
In Brazil's coffee belt there are two seasons—the wet, running from September
to March; and the dry, running from April to August. The coffee trees are in
bloom from September to December. The blossoms last about four days, and are
easily beaten off by light winds or rains. If the rains or winds are violent,
the green berries may be similarly destroyed; so that great damage may be caused
by unseasonable rains and storms.
The harvest usually begins in April or May, and extends well into the dry
season. Even in the picking season, heavy rains and strong winds—especially the
latter—may do considerable damage; for in Brazil shade trees and wind-breaks are
the exception.
Approximately twenty-five percent of the São Paulo plantations are cultivated
by machinery. A type of cultivator very common is similar to the small corn-plow
used in the United States. The Planet Junior, manufactured by a well known
United States agricultural-machinery firm, is the most popular cultivator. It is
drawn by a small mule, with a boy to lead it, and a man to drive and to guide
the plow.
Picking Coffee in
São Paulo
Copyright by Brown & Dawson.
The preponderance of the coffee over other industries in São Paulo is shown
in many ways. A few years ago the registration of laborers in all industries was
about 450,000; and of this total, 420,000 were employed in the production and
transportation of coffee alone. Of the capital invested in all industries, about
eighty-five percent was in coffee production and commerce, including the
railroads that depended upon it directly. An estimated value of $482,500,000 was
placed upon the plantations in the state, including land, machinery, the
residences of owners, and laborers' quarters.
In all Brazil, there are approximately 1,200,000,000 coffee trees. The number
of bearing coffee trees in São Paulo alone increased from 735,000,000 in 1914–15
to 834,000,000 in 1917–18. The crop in 1917–18 was 1,615,000,000 pounds, one of
the largest on record. In the agricultural year of 1922–23 there were
764,969,500 coffee trees in bearing in São Paulo, and in São Paulo, Minãs, and
Parana, 824,194,500.
Intensive
Cultivation Methods in the Ribeirao Preto District, São
Paulo
Photograph by Courtesy of J. Aron &
Co.
Plantations having from 300,000 to 400,000 trees are common. One plantation
near Ribeirao Preto has 5,000,000 trees, and requires an army of 6,000 laborers
to work it.
Another planter owns thirty-two adjacent plantations containing, in all, from
7,500,000 to 8,000,000 coffee trees and gives employment to 8,000 persons. There
are fifteen plantations having more than 1,000,000 trees each, and five of these
have more than 2,000,000 trees each. In the municipality of Ribeirao Preto there
were 30,000,000 trees in 1922.
Private Railroad on
a São Paulo Coffee Fazenda
Showing coffee trees and laborers'
houses in the middle distance at right
Photograph by Courtesy of J. Aron
& Co.
The largest coffee plantations in the world are the Fazendas Dumont and the
Fazendas Schmidt. The Fazendas Dumont were valued, in 1915, in cost of land and
improvements, at $5,920,007; and since those figures were given out, the value
of the investment has much increased. Of the various Fazendas Schmidt, the
largest, owned by Colonel Francisco Schmidt, in 1918 had 9,000,000 trees with an
annual yield of 200,000 bags, or 26,400,000 pounds, of coffee. Other large
plantations in São Paulo with a million or more trees, are the Companhia
Agricola Fazenda Dumont, 2,420,000 trees; Companhia São Martinho, 2,300,000
trees; Companhia Dumont, 2,000,000 trees; São Paulo Coffee Company, 1,860,000
trees; Christiana Oxorio de Oliveira, 1,790,000 trees; Companhia Guatapara,
1,550,000 trees; Dr. Alfredo Ellis, 1,271,000 trees; Companhia Agricola Araqua,
1,200,000 trees; Companhia Agricola Ribeirao Preto, 1,138,000 trees; Rodriguez
Alves Irmaos, 1,060,000 trees; Francisca Silveira do Val, 1,050,000 trees; Luiza
de Oliveira Azevedo, 1,045,000 trees; and the Companhia Caféeria São Paulo,
1,000,000 trees.
The average annual yield in São Paulo is estimated at from 1,750 to 4,000
pounds from a thousand trees, while in exceptional instances it is said that as
much as 6,000 pounds per 1,000 trees have been gathered. Differences in local
climatic conditions, in ages of trees, in richness of soil, and in the care
exercised in cultivation, are given as the reasons for the wide variation.
The oldest coffee-growing district in São Paulo is Campinas. There are 136
others.
Bahia coffee is not so carefully cultivated and harvested as the Santos
coffee. The introduction of capital and modern methods would do much for Bahia,
which has the advantage of a shorter haul to the New York and the European
markets.
On the average, something like seventy percent of the world's coffee crop is
grown in Brazil, and two-thirds of this is produced in São Paulo. Coffee culture
in many districts of São Paulo has been brought to the point of highest
development; and yet its product is essentially a quantity, not a quality,
one.
Colombia. In Colombia, coffee is the principal crop
grown for export. It is produced in nearly all departments at elevations ranging
from 3,500 feet to 6,500 feet. Chief among the coffee-growing departments are
Antioquia (capital, Medellin); Caldas (capital, Manizales); Magdalena (capital,
Santa Marta); Santander (capital, Bucaramanga); Tolima (capital, Ibague); and
the Federal District (capital, Bogota). The department of Cundinamarca produces
a coffee that is counted one of the best of Colombian grades. The finest grades
are grown in the foot-hills of the Andes, in altitudes from 3,500 to 4,500 feet
above sea level.
The Conducting
Sluiceway at Guatapara
The running water carries the picked
coffee berries to pulpers and washing tanks
Coffee Picking and
Field Transport
COFFEE CULTURE IN SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL
A NEAR VIEW OF A HEAVILY LADEN
COFFEE TREE ON A BOGOTA PLANTATION
Picking Coffee on a
Bogota Plantation
Methods of planting, cultivation, gathering, and preparing the Colombian
coffee crop for the market are substantially those that are common in all
coffee-producing countries, although they differ in some small particulars.
About 700 trees are usually planted to the acre, and native trees furnish the
necessary shade. The average yield is one pound per tree per year.
While
Coffea arabica has been mostly cultivated in Colombia, as in the
other countries of South America, the
liberica variety has not been
neglected. Seeds of the
liberica tree were planted here soon after 1880,
and were moderately successful. Since 1900, more attention has been given to
liberica, and attempts have been made to grow it upon banana and rubber
plantations, which seem to provide all the shade protection that is needed.
Liberica coffee trees begin to bear in their third year. From the fifth
year, when a crop of about 650 pounds to the acre can reasonably be expected,
the productiveness steadily increases until after fifteen or sixteen years, when
a maximum of over one thousand pounds an acre is attained.
Antioquia is the largest coffee producing department in the republic, and its
coffee is of the highest grade grown. Medellin, the capital, where the business
interests of the industry are concentrated, is a handsome white city located on
the banks of the Aburra river, in a picturesque valley that is overlooked by the
high peaks of the Andean range. It is a town of about 80,000 inhabitants,
thriving as a manufacturing center, abundant in modern improvements, and is the
center of a coffee production of 500,000 bags known in the market as Medellin
and Manizales. Another center in this coffee region is the town of Manizales,
perched on the crest of the Andean spurs to dominate the valley extending to
Medellin and the Cauca valley to the Pacific. There-about many small coffee
growers are settled, and several hundred thousand bags of the beans pass through
annually.
One of the interesting plantations of the country was started a few years ago
in a remote region by an enterprising American investor. It was located on the
slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains 3,000 to 5,000 feet above sea-level, about
twenty-five miles from the city of Santa Marta. An extended acreage of
forest-covered land was acquired, about 600 acres of which were cleared and
either planted in coffee or reserved for pasturage and other kinds of
agriculture.
When the plantation came to maturity, it had nearly 300,000 trees. In 1919,
there were 425,000 trees producing 3,600 hundred-weight of coffee.
A typical Colombian plantation is the Namay, owned by one of the bankers of
the Banco de Colombia of Bogota. It is located a good half day's travel by rail
and horseback from the city, about 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. There
are 1,000 acres in the plantation, with 250,000 trees having an ultimate
productive capacity of nearly 2,000 bags a year. During crop times, which are
from May to July, about two hundred families are needed on an estate of this
size.
Venezuela. Seeds of the coffee plant were brought
into Venezuela from Martinique in 1784 by a priest who started a small
plantation near Caracas. Five years later, the first export of the bean was
made, 233 bags, or about 30,000 pounds. Within fifty years, production had
increased to upward of 50,000,000 pounds annually; and by the end of the
nineteenth century, to more than 100,000,000 pounds.
Situated between the equator and the twelfth parallel of north latitude, in
the world's coffee belt, this country has an area equal to that of all the
United States east of the Mississippi river and north of the Ohio and Potomac
rivers, or greater than that of France, Germany, and the Netherlands
combined—599,533 square miles.
The chain of the Maritime Andes, reaching eastward across Colombia and
Venezuela, approaches the Caribbean coast in the latter country. Along the
slopes and foot-hills of these mountains are produced some of the finest grades
of South American coffee. Here the best coffee grows in the
tierra
templada and in the lower part of the
tierra fria, and is known as
the
café de tierra fria, or coffee of the cold, or high, land. In these
regions the equable climate, the constant and adequate moisture, the rich and
well-drained soil, and the protecting forest shade afford the conditions under
which the plant grows and thrives best. On the fertile lowland valleys nearer
the coast grows the
café de tierra caliente, or coffee of the hot
land.
On the Altamira
Hacienda, Venezuela
The long pipe crossing the center of the
picture is a water sluiceway bringing coffee down from the hills
Coffee growing has become the main agricultural pursuit of the country. In
1839 it was estimated that there were 8,900 acres of land planted in coffee, and
in 1888 there were 168,000,000 coffee trees in the country on 346,000 acres of
land. In the opening years of the twentieth century not far from 250,000 acres
were devoted to this cultivation, comprised in upward of 33,000 plantations. The
average yield per acre is about 250 pounds. The trees are usually planted from
two to two and a quarter meters apart, and this gives about 800 trees to the
acre. The triangle system is unknown.
Carmen Hacienda,
Fronting on the Escalante River, Venezuela
In this country, the coffee tree bears its first crop when four or five years
old. The trees are not subject to unusual hazards from the attacks of injurious
insects and animals or from serious parasitic diseases. Nature is kind to them,
and their only serious contention for existence arises from the luxuriant
tropical vegetation by which they are surrounded. On the whole their cultivation
is comparatively easy. On the best managed estates there are not more than 1,000
trees to a
fanegada—about one and three-quarters acres of land—and it is
calculated that an average annual yield for such a
fanegada should be
about twenty quintals, a little more than 2,032 pounds of merchantable coffee.
It is to be noted, however, that the average yield per tree throughout Venezuela
is low—not more than four ounces.
There are no great coffee belts as in Mexico and Central America. Many
districts are days' rides apart. The plantations are isolated, and there is
lacking a co-operative spirit among the growers.
Methods of cultivating and preparing the berry for the market are
substantially those that prevail elsewhere in South America. Most plantations
are handled in ordinary, old-fashioned ways; but the better estates employ
machinery and methods of the most advanced and improved character at all points
of their operation, from the planting of the seed to the final marketing of the
berry.
Java. Java, the oldest coffee-producing country in
which the tree is not indigenous, was producing a high-grade coffee long before
Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela entered the industry; and it held its supremacy
in the world's trade for many years before the younger American producing
countries were able to surpass its annual output. The first attempt to introduce
the plant into Java took place in 1696, the seedlings being brought from Malabar
in India and planted at Kadawoeng, near Batavia. Earthquake and flood soon
destroyed the plants; and in 1699 Henricus Zwaardecroon brought the second lot
of seedlings from Malabar. These became the progenitors of all the
arabica coffees of the Dutch East Indies. The industry grew, and in 1711
the first Java coffee was sold at public auction in Amsterdam. Exports amounted
to 116,587 pounds in 1720; and in 1724 the Amsterdam market sold 1,396,486
pounds of coffee from Java.
From the early part of the nineteenth century up to 1905, cultivation was
carried on under a Dutch government monopoly—excepting for the five years, 1811–16, when
the British had control of the island. The government monopoly was first
established when Marshal Daendels, acting for the crown of Holland, took control
of the islands from the Netherlands East India Company. Before that time, the
princes of Preanger had raised all the coffee under the provisions of a treaty
made in the middle of the eighteenth century, by which they paid an annual
tribute in coffee to the company for the privilege of retaining their land
revenues. When the Dutch government recovered the islands from the British, the
plantations, which had been permitted to go to ruin, were put in order again,
and the government system re-established.
A Heavy Fruiting of
Coffea Robusta in Java
A modification of the first monopoly plan of the government was put into
effect later in the régime of Governor Van den Bosch, and was maintained until
into the twentieth century. Under the Daendels plan, each native family was
required to keep 1000 coffee trees in bearing on village lands, and to give to
the government two-fifths of the crop, delivered cleaned and sorted, at the
government store. The natives retained the other three-fifths. Under the Van den
Bosch system, each family was required to raise and care for 650 trees and to
deliver the crop cleaned and sorted to the government stores at a fixed price.
The government then sold the coffee at public auctions in Batavia, Padang,
Amsterdam, or Rotterdam.
This method of fostering the new industry resulted in government control of
fully four-fifths of the area under the crop, only the small balance being owned
or worked independently by private enterprise. For many years after the
cultivation had been fully started, this condition of the business persisted.
Most of the privately-operated plantations had been in existence before the
government had set up its monopoly system. Others were on the estates of native
princes who, in treating with the Dutch, had been able to retain some of their
original sovereign rights. While these plans worked well in encouraging the
industry at the outset, they were not conducive to the fullest possibilities in
production. Forced labor on the government plantations was naturally apt to be
slow, careless, and indifferent. Private ownership and operation bettered this
somewhat, the private estates being able to show annual yields of from one to
two pounds per tree as compared with only a little more than one-half pound per tree on
government-controlled estates.
In the course of time, the system of private ownership gradually expanded
beyond that of the government; and before the end of the nineteenth century,
private owners were growing and exporting more coffee than did the Javanese
government. The government withdrew from the coffee business in Java in 1905,
and the last government auction was held in June of that year. The monopoly in
Sumatra was given up in 1908. After that, however, coffee continued to be grown
on government lands, but in much less quantity than in the years immediately
preceding. The Dutch government withdrew from all coffee cultivation in
1918–19.
According to statistics, the ground under cultivation for all kinds of coffee
in Java and the other islands of the Dutch East Indies in 1919 was 142,272
acres, of which 112,138 acres were in Java. Of this area, 110,903 acres were
planted with
robusta, 15,314 acres with
arabica, 4,940 with
liberica, and 11,115 with other varieties.
There were more than 400 European-managed estates in 1915, covering a planted
area of about 209,000 acres. Three hundred and thirty of these estates,
representing 165,000 acres, were in Java. On that island production in 1904 was
47,927,000 pounds; in 1905, 59,092,000 pounds; in 1906, 66,953,000 pounds; in
1907, 31,044,000 pounds; 1908, 39,349,000 pounds. The total crop in 1919 for all
the Netherlands East Indies was 97,361,000 pounds, as against 140,764,800 pounds
for 1918.
Intensive cultivation methods on the European-operated plantations in Java
have been practised for many years; and the Netherlands East Indies government
has long maintained experimental stations for the purpose of improving strains
and cultivation methods.
Road Through a
Coffee Estate in East Java
In some parts of the island, especially in the highlands, the climate and
soil are ideal for coffee culture. The
robusta tree grows satisfactorily
even at altitudes of less than 1,000 feet in some regions; but its bearing life
is only about ten years, as compared with the thirty years of the
arabica
at altitudes of from 3,000 to 4,000 feet. The low-ground trees generally produce
earlier and more abundantly. On some of the highland plantations, pruning is not
practised to any great extent, and the trees often reach thirty or forty feet in
height. This necessitates the use of ladders in picking; but frequently the yield per tree
has been from six to seven pounds.
Native Picking
Coffee, Sumatra
Coffee is produced commercially in nearly every political district in Java,
but the bulk of the yield is obtained from East Java. The names best known to
European and American traders are those of the regencies of Besoeki and
Pasoeroean; because their coffees make up eighty-seven percent of Java's
production. Some of the other better known districts are: Preanger, Cheribon,
Kadoe, Samarang, Soerabaya, and Tegal.
The
arabica variety has practically been driven out of the districts
below 3,500 feet altitude by the leaf disease, and has been succeeded by the
more hardy
robusta and
liberica coffees and their hybrids.
Illustrating the importance of
robusta coffee, Netherlands East India
government in a statement issued August, 1919, estimated the area under
cultivation on all islands as follows:
robusta, eighty-four percent;
arabica, five and one-half percent;
liberica, four and one-half
percent. The balance, six percent, was made up of scores of other varieties,
among the most important being the
canephora,
Ugandæ,
baukobensis,
suakurensis,
Quillou,
stenophylla, and
rood-bessige. All of these are similar to
robusta, and are
exported as
robusta-achtigen (
robusta-like). The
liberica
group includes the
excelsa,
abeokuta,
Dewevrei,
arnoldiana,
aruwimiensis, and
Dybowskii.
Palatial Bungalow of
Administrator, Dramaga, in the Preanger District, Java
Sumatra. Practically all the coffee districts in
Sumatra are on the west coast, where the plant was first propagated early in the
eighteenth century. Padang, the capital city, is the headquarters for Sumatra
coffee. With climate and soil similar to Java, the island of Sumatra has the
added advantage that its land is not "coffee
moe", or coffee tired, as is
the case in parts of Java. Some of the world's best coffees are still coming
from Sumatra; and the island has possibilities that could make it an important
factor in production. Sumatra produced 287,179 piculs of coffee in 1920. The
total production of all the islands that year was 807,591 piculs.
Old-Time Sailing
Vessel Loading in Padang Roads
Interior of a Dutch
Coffee-Cleaning Factory, Padang
COFFEE SCENES IN SUMATRA, NETHERLANDS
EAST INDIES
Administrator's
Bungalow on the Gadoeng Batoe Estate, Sumatra
The districts of Ankola, Siboga, Ayer Bangies, Mandheling, Palembang, Padang,
and Benkoelen, on the west coast, have some of the largest estates on the
island; and their products are well known in international trade. The east coast
has recently gone in for heavy plantings of
robusta.
As in Java, coffee for a century or more was cultivated under the
government-monopoly scheme. The compulsory system was given up in this island in
1908, three years after it was abandoned in Java.
Other East Indies. Coffee is grown in several of the
other islands in the Dutch East Indian archipelago, chiefly on the Celebes,
Bali, Lombok, the Moluccas, and Timor. Most of the estates are under native
control, and the methods of cultivation are not up to the standard of the
European-owned plantations on the larger islands of Java and Sumatra. The most
important of these islands is Celebes, where the first coffee plant was
introduced from Java about 1750, but where cultivation was not carried on to any
great extent until about seventy-five years later. In 1822 the production
amounted to 10,000 pounds; in 1917, the yield was 1,322,328 pounds.
Salvador. Coffee, which is far and away the most
important crop in Salvador, constitutes in value more than one-half the total
exports. It has been cultivated since about 1852, when plants were brought from
Havana; but the development of the industry in its early years was not rapid.
The first large plantations were established in 1876 in La Paz, and that
department has become the leading coffee-producing section of the country.
The berry is grown in all districts that have altitudes of from 1,500 to
4,000 feet. Besides those of La Paz, the most productive plantations are in the
departments of Santa Ana, Sonsonate, San Salvador, San Vincente, San Miguel,
Santa Tecla, and Ahuachapan. In contrast with several of the adjoining Central
American republics, native Salvadoreans are the owners of most of the coffee
farms, very few having passed into the hands of foreigners. The laborers are
almost entirely native Indians. A considerable part of the work of cultivating
and preparing the berry for the market is still done by hand; but in recent
years machinery has been set up on the large estates and for general use in the
receiving centers.
Well Cultivated
Young Coffee Trees in Blossom
Entrance to a Finca
in the Highlands
COFFEE CULTURE IN GUATEMALA
It is estimated that now about 166,000 acres are under coffee, nearly all the
land in the country suitable for that purpose. As in most other coffee-raising
countries, the trees begin bearing when they are two or three years old, reach
full maturity at the age of seven or eight years, and continue to bear for about
thirty years. Intensive cultivation and a more extensive use of fertilizers have
been urged as necessary in order to increase the crop; but, so far, with not
much effect, the importation of fertilizer being still very small. Crop
gathering begins in the lowlands in November, and gradually proceeds into the
higher regions, month by month, until the picking in the highest altitudes is
finished in the following March.
Guatemala. Guatemala began intensive coffee growing
about 1875. Coffee had been known in the country in a small way from about 1850,
but now serious attention began to be given to its cultivation, and it quickly
advanced to an industrial position of importance. Within a generation it became
the great staple crop of the country.
Guatemala has an area of 48,250 square miles, about the size of the state of
Ohio. Its population is about 2,000,000. Three mountain ranges, intersecting
magnificent table lands, traverse the country from north to south; and there is
the great coffee territory. The table lands are from 2,500 to 5,000 feet above
sea-level, and have a temperate climate most agreeable to the coffee tree. On
the lower heights it is necessary to protect the young trees from the extreme
heat of the sun; and the banana is most approved for this purpose, since it
raises its own crop at the same time that it is giving shade to its companion
tree. On the higher levels the plantations need protection from the cold north
winds that blow strongly across the country, especially in December, January,
and February. The range of hills to the north is the best protection, and
generally is all sufficient. When the weather becomes too severe, heaps of
rubbish mixed with pitch are thrown up to the north of the fields of coffee
trees and set afire, the resultant dense smoke driving down between rows of
trees and saving them from the frost.
Indians Picking
Coffee, Guatemala
Named in the order of their productivity, the coffee districts are Costa
Cuca, Costa Grande, Barberena, Tumbador, Cobán, Costa de Cucho, Chicacao,
Xolhuitz, Pochuta, Malacatan, San Marcos, Chuva, Panan, Turgo, Escuintla, San
Vincente, Pacaya, Antigua, Moran, Amatitlan, Sumatan, Palmar, Zunil, and
Motagua.
Estimates of coffee acreage vary. One authority, too conservatively, perhaps,
puts the figure at 145,000. Another estimate is 260,000 acres. Under cultivation
are from 70,000,000 to 100,000,000 trees from which an annual crop averaging
about 75,000,000 pounds is raised, and the exceptional amounts of nearly
90,000,000 and 97,000,000 pounds have been harvested. Several plantations of
size can be counted upon for an annual production of more than 1,000,000 pounds
each.
Before the World War German interests dominated the coffee industry, handling
fully eighty percent of the crop, and growing nearly half of it.
Planting and cultivation methods in Guatemala are about the same as those
prevailing in other countries. The trees are usually in flower in February,
March, and April, and the harvesting season extends from August to January. All
work on the plantation is done by Indian laborers under a peonage system,
families working in companies: wages are small, but sufficient, conditions of
living being easy. As elsewhere in these tropical and sub-tropical countries,
scarcity of labor is severely felt, and is a grave obstacle to the development
of the industry in a land that is regarded as particularly well adapted to
it.
The Coffee Planter's
Life in Guatemala Is One of Pleasantness and Peace
Haiti. Haiti, the magic isle of the Indies, has
grown coffee almost from the beginning of the introduction of the tree into the
western hemisphere. Its cultivation was started there about 1715, but the trees
were largely permitted to fall into a wild natural state, and little attention
was given to them or to the handling of the crop. Fertility of soil, climate,
and moisture are favorable, and the advancement of the industry has been
retarded only by the political conditions of the negro republic and a general
lack of industry and enterprise on the part of the people.
Haiti is an island with three names. Haiti is used to describe the island as
a whole, and to denote the Republic of Haiti, which occupies the western third
of its area. The island is also known as Santo Domingo, and San Domingo, names
likewise applied to the Dominican Republic which occupies the eastern two-thirds
of the land unit.
Plantations now existing in Haiti have had, with rare exceptions, a life of
more than ten or twenty years. It is estimated that they cover about 125,000
acres, with about 400 trees to the acre.
When the French acquired the island in 1789, the annual production was
88,360,502 pounds. During the following century that amount was not approached
in any year, the nearest to it being 72,637,716 pounds in 1875. The lowest
annual production was 20,280,589 pounds in 1818. The range during the hundred
years, 1789–1890, was, with the exceptions noted, from 45,000,000 to 71,000,000
pounds.
Mexico. Opinions differ as to the exact date when
coffee was introduced into Mexico. It is said to have been transplanted there
from the West Indies near the end of the eighteenth century. A story is current
that a Spaniard set out a few trees, on trial, in southern Mexico, in 1800, and
that his experiments started other Mexican planters along the same line. Coffee
was grown in the state of Vera Cruz early in the nineteenth century; and the
books of the Vera Cruz custom house record that 1,101 quintals of coffee were
exported through that port during the years 1802, 1803, and 1805.
In the Coatepec district, which eventually became famous in the annals of
Mexican coffee growing, trees were planted about the year 1808. Local history
says that seeds were brought from Cuba by Arias, a partner of the house of Pedro
Lopez, owners of the large
hacienda of Orduna in Coatepec. The seeds were
given to a priest, Andres Dominguez, who sowed them near Teocelo. When he had
succeeded in starting seedlings, he gave them away to other planters
there-about. The plants thrived, and this was the beginning of coffee
cultivation in that section of the country.
Thirty-Year-Old
Coffee Trees, La Esperanza, Huatusco, Mexico
It was, however, nearly ten years later before the cultivation was on a scale
approaching industrial and commercial importance. About 1816 or 1818 a Spaniard,
named Juan Antonio Gomez, introduced the plant into the neighborhood of Cordoba.
This city, now on the line of the Mexican and Vera Cruz Railroad, 200 miles from
Mexico City, and sixty miles from Vera Cruz, is 2,500 feet above sea-level, and
is situated in the most productive tropical region of the country.
Having been started in Coatepec and Cordoba, the industry was centered for a
long time in the state of Vera Cruz. For many years practically all the coffee
grown commercially in Mexico was produced in that state. Gradually the new
pursuit spread to the mountains in the adjacent states of Oaxaca and Puebla,
where it was taken up by the Indians almost entirely, and is still followed by
them, but not on a large scale.
Although cultivation is now widely distributed in most of the more southern
states of the republic, the principal coffee territory is still in Vera Cruz,
where lie the districts of Cordoba, Orizaba, Huatusco, and Coatepec. In the same
region are the Jalapa district, and the mountains of Puebla, where a great deal
of coffee is grown. Farther south are the Oaxaca districts on the mountain
slopes of the Pacific coast, and still farther south the districts of the state
of Chiapas. Planting in the Pluma district in Oaxaca was begun about fifty years
ago, and it now produces annually, in good years, nearly 1,000,000 pounds. The
youngest district in this section is Soconusco, one of the most prolific in the
republic, having been developed within the last thirty years. The region is near
the border of Guatemala, and the coffee is held by many to possess some of the
quality of the coffee of that country. The influence of Guatemalan methods has
been felt also in its cultivation and handling, especially in increasing
plantation productiveness. On the gulf slope of Oaxaca, there are plantations
that annually produce 222,000 to 550,000 pounds. Several United States companies
have become interested in coffee growing in this state, and their output in recent
years has been put upon the market in St. Louis.
Two principal varieties of coffee are recognized in Mexico. A sub-variety of
Coffea arabica is mostly cultivated. This is an evergreen, growing only
from five to seven feet. It flourishes well at different altitudes and in
different climes, from the temperate plains of Puebla to the hot, damp, lower
lands of Vera Cruz and Oaxaca, and other Pacific-coast regions. The range of
elevation for it is from 1,500 to 5,000 feet, and it is satisfied with a
temperature as low as 55° or as high as 80°, with plenty of natural humidity or
with irrigation in the dry season. The other variety is called the "myrtle" and
is widely grown, although not in large quantities. It is distinguished from
arabica by the larger leaf of the tree and by the smaller corolla of the
flower. It is a hardier plant than the
arabica and will stand the higher
temperature of low altitudes, thriving at an elevation of from 500 to 3,000 feet
above sea-level. Mostly it is cultivated in the Cordoba district.
It is claimed by many that the Mexican coffee of best quality is grown in the
western regions of the table lands of Colima and Michoacan, but only a small
quantity of that is available for export. The state of Michoacan is especially
favored by climate, altitude, soil, and surroundings to produce coffee of
exceptionally high grade, and the Uruapan is considered to be its best.
Trees flower in January and March, and in high altitudes as late as June or
July. Berries appear in July and are ripe for gathering in October or November,
the picking season lasting until February.
Trees begin to yield when two or three years old, producing from two to four
ounces. They reach full production, which is about one and a half pounds, at the
age of six or seven years, though in the districts of Chiapas, Michoacan,
Oaxaca, and Puebla, annual yields of three to five pounds per tree have been
reported.
Since the World War American buyers have shown greater interest in the
Tapachula coffee grown in Chiapas.
Mexican Coffee
Picker, Coatepec District
Porto Rico. Coffee culture in Porto Rico dates from
1755 or even earlier, having been introduced from the neighboring islands of
Martinique and Haiti. Count O'Reilly, writing of the island in the eighteenth
century, mentions that the coffee exports for five years previous to 1765
amounted in value to $2,078. Old records show that in 1770 there was a crop of
700,000 pounds and that seems to be the first evidence that the new industry was
growing to any noticeable proportions. For a hundred years, at least, only slow
progress was made. In 1768 the king, of Spain issued a royal decree exempting
coffee growers on the island from the payment of taxes or charges for a period
of five years; but even that measure was not materially successful in
stimulating interest and in developing cultivation.
Porto Rico is a good coffee-growing country; soil, climate, and temperature
are well adapted to the berry. The coffee belt extends through the western half
of the island, beginning in the hills along the south coast around Ponce, and
extending north through the center of the island almost to Arecibo, near the
west end of the north coast. But some coffee is grown in the other parts of the
island, in sixty-four of the sixty-eight municipalities. Mountain sections are
considered to be superior.
The largest plantations are in the region which includes the municipalities
of Utuado, Adjuntas, Lares, Las Marias, Yauco, Maricao, San Sebastian, Mayaguez,
Ciales, and Ponce. With the exception of Ponce and Mayaguez, all these districts
are back from the coast; but insular roads of recent construction make them now easily
accessible, and there is no point on the island more than twenty miles distant
from the sea.
Receiving and
Measuring the Ripe Berries from the Pickers, Mexico
From the Sierra Luquillo range, which rises to a height of 1,500 feet, and
from Yauco, Utuado, and Lares, come excellent coffees; and, on the whole, these
are considered to be the best coffee regions of the island. A fine grade of
coffee is also grown in the Ciales district. Figures compiled by the Treasury
Department of the insular government for the purpose of taxation showed that for
the tax year 1915–16 there were 167,137 acres of land planted to coffee and
valued at $10,341,592, an average of $61.87 per acre. In 1910, there were
151,000 acres planted in coffee. In 1916 there were more than 5,000 separate
coffee plantations.
Originally the coffee trees of Porto Rico were all of the
arabica
variety. In recent years numerous others have been introduced, until in 1917
there were more than 2,500 trees of new descriptions on the island.
The virgin land in the interior of the island is admirably adapted to the
coffee tree, and less labor is required to prepare it for plantation purposes
than in many other coffee-growing countries. It is cleared in the usual manner,
and the trees are planted about eight feet apart, an average of 680 trees to the
acre. The seeds are planted in February; and if the seedlings are transplanted,
that is done when they are a year or a year and a half old. The guama, a big
strong tree of dense foliage, is used for a wind-break on the ridges; and the
guava, for shade in the plantation. Plow cultivation is generally impossible on
account of the lay of the land, and only hoeing and spade work are done. Pruning
is carefully attended to as the trees become full grown.
Flowering is generally in February and March, or even later. Heavy rains in
April make a poor crop. Harvesting begins in September and extends into January,
during which time ten pickings are made.
SINGLE PORTO RICO COFFEE TREE IN FULL
BEARING, PROPPED UP WITH STAKES
The average yield per acre is between 200 and 300 pounds; but expert
authority—Prof. O.F. Cook—in a statement made to the Committee on Insular
Affairs of the United States House of Representatives, in 1900, held that under
better cultural methods the yield could be increased to 800 or 900 pounds per
acre. One estimator has calculated that an average plantation of 100 acres had
cost its owner at the end of six or seven years, the bearing age, about $13,100
with yields of 75 pounds per acre in the third and in the fourth years, 400
pounds per acre in the fifth year, and 500 pounds in the sixth year, the income
from which would practically have met the cost to that time. It is held by the
same authority that an intensively cultivated, well-situated farm of selected
trees, 880 to the acre, should yield some 880 pounds of cleaned coffee to the
acre.
Costa Rica. Costa Rica ranks next to Guatemala and
Salvador among the Central American countries as a producer of coffee, showing
an average annual yield in recent years of 35,000,000 pounds as compared with
Guatemala's 80,000,000 and Salvador's 75,000,000 pounds. Nicaragua has an
average annual production of 30,000,000 pounds.
Coffee was introduced into Costa Rica in the latter part of the eighteenth
century; one authority saying that the plants were brought from Cuba in 1779 by
a Spanish voyager, Navarro, and another saying that the first trees were planted
several years later by Padre Carazo, a Spanish missionary coming from Jamaica.
For more than a century six big coffee trees standing in a courtyard in the city
of Cartago were pointed out to visitors as the very trees that Carazo had
planted.
The coffee-producing districts are principally on the Pacific slope and in
the central plateaus of the interior. Plantations are located in the provinces
of Cartago, Tres Rios, San José, Heredia, and Alajuela. In the province of
Cartago are several extensive new estates on the slope to the Atlantic coast.
The San José and the Cartago districts are considered by many to be the best
naturally for the coffee tree. The soil is an exceedingly rich black loam made
up of continuous layers of volcanic ashes and dust from three to fifteen feet
deep. Preferable altitudes for plantations range from 3,000 to 4,500 feet,
although a height of 5,000 feet is not out of use and there are some estates
that do fairly well on levels as low as 1,500 feet.
The Modern Idea in
Coffee Cultivation, Costa Rica
India. Tradition has it that a Moslem pilgrim in the
seventeenth century brought from Mecca to India the first coffee seeds known in
that country. They were planted near a temple on a hill in Mysore called Baba
Budan, after the pilgrim; and from there the cultivation of coffee gradually
spread to neighboring districts. Aside from this legend, nothing further is heard
about coffee in India until the early part of the nineteenth century, when its
existence there was confirmed by the granting of a charter to Fort Gloster, near
Calcutta, authorizing that place to become a coffee plantation.
Picking Costa Rica
Coffee
Planting was begun on the flat land of the plains, but the trees did not
thrive. Then the cultivation was extended to the hills in southern India,
especially in Mysore, where better success was achieved. The first systematic
plantation was established in 1840. For the most part, the production has always
been confined to southern India in the elevated region near the southwestern
coast. The coffee district comprises the landward slopes of the Western Ghats,
from Kanara to Travancore.
About one-half of the coffee-producing area is in Mysore; and other
plantations are in Kurg (Coorg), the Madras districts of Malabar, and in the
Nilgiri hills, those regions having 86 percent of the whole area under
cultivation. Some coffee is grown also in other districts in Madras, principally
in Madura, Salem, and Coimbator, in Cochin, in Travancore, and, on a restricted
scale, in Burma, Assam, and Bombay. The area returned as under coffee in 1885
was 237,448 acres; in 1896, as 303,944 acres. Since then there has been a
progressive decrease on account of damage from leaf diseases difficult to
combat, and by competition with Brazilian coffee.
Coffee Estate in the
Mountains of Costa Rica
New land that had just been planted with coffee in plantations reported for
1919–20 amounted to 7,012 acres; while the area abandoned was 8,725 acres,
representing a net decrease in cultivated area of 1,713 acres.
Bird's-Eye View of a
Coffee Estate in Mysore, India
Of the total area devoted to coffee cultivation (126,919 acres), 49 percent
was in Mysore, which yielded 35 percent of the total production; while Madras,
with 23 percent of the total area, yielded 38 percent of the production. The
total production for the year 1920–21 is reported as 26,902,471 pounds.
Yield varies throughout the country according to the methods of cultivation
and the condition of the season. On the best estates in a good season, the yield
per acre may be as high as 1,100 or 1,200 pounds, and on poor estates it may not
be over 200 or 300 pounds. The
arabica variety is chiefly cultivated. The
robusta and
Maragogipe have been tried, but without much
success.
A representative plantation is the Santaverre in Mysore, comprising 400
acres, at an elevation of from 4,000 to 4,500 feet, where the coffee trees,
cultivated under shade, produce from 100 to 250 tons of coffee a year. Other
prominent estates in Mysore are Cannon's Baloor and Mylemoney, the Hoskahn, and
the Sumpigay Khan.
Nicaragua. Coffee trees will grow well anywhere in
Nicaragua, but the best locations have altitudes of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet
above sea level. At such elevations the yield varies from one pound to five
pounds per tree annually; but above or below those, the average production
diminishes to from one pound to one-half pound a tree.
Lands most suitable for the berry are on the Sierra de Managua, in Diriambe,
San Marcos, and Jinotega, and about the base of the volcano Monbacho near
Granada. Good land is also found on the island Omotepe in Lake Nicaragua, and
around Boaco in the department of Chontales, where cultivation was begun in
1893.
There are also plantations in the vicinity of Esteli and Lomati in the
department of Neuva Segovia. The most extensive operations are in the
departments of Managua, Carazo, Matagalpa, Chontales, and Jinotega, and from
those regions the annual crop has attained to such quantity that it has become
the chief agricultural product of the republic. Poor and costly means of
transportation on the Atlantic slope have operated to retard the
development
of the industry there, even though conditions of climate are not
unfavorable.
Coffee Growing Under
Shade, Ubban Estate, India
Abyssinia. In the absence of any conclusive evidence
to the contrary, the claim that coffee was first made known to modern man by the
trees on the mountains of the northeastern part of the continent of Africa may
be accepted without reserve. Undoubtedly the plant grew wild all through
tropical Africa; but its value as an addition to man's dietary was brought forth
in Abyssinia.
Abyssinia, while it may have given coffee to the world, no longer figures as
a prime factor in supplying the world, and now exports only a limited quantity.
There are produced in the country two coffees known to the trade as Harari and
Abyssinian, the former being by far the more important. The Harari is the fruit
of cultivated
arabica trees grown in the province of Harar, and mostly in
the neighborhood of the city of Harar, capital of the province. The Abyssianian
is the fruit of wild
arabica trees that grow mainly in the provinces of
Sidamo, Kaffa, and Guma.
The coffee of Harar is known to the trade as Mocha longberry or Abyssinian
longberry. Most of the plantations upon which it is raised are owned by the
native Hararis, Galla, and Abyssinians, although there are a few Greek, German,
and French planters. The trees are planted in rows about twelve or fifteen feet
apart, and comparatively little attention is given to cultivation. Crops average
two a year, and sometimes even five in two years. The big yield is in December,
January, and February. The average crop is about seventy pounds, and is mostly
from small plots of from fifty to one hundred trees, there being no very large
plantations. All the coffee is brought into the city of Harar, whence it is sent
on mule-back to Dire-Daoua on the Franco-Ethiopian Railway, and from there by
rail to Jibuti. Some of it is exported directly from Jibuti, and the rest is
forwarded to Aden, in Arabia, for re-exporting.
Abyssinian, or wild, coffee is also known as Kaffa coffee, from one of the
districts where it grows most abundantly in a state of nature. This coffee has a
smaller bean and is less rich in aroma and flavor than the Harari; but the trees
grow in such profusion that the possible supply, at the minimum of labor in
gathering, is practically unlimited. It is said that in southwestern Abyssinia there
are immense forests of it that have never been encroached upon except at the
outskirts, where the natives lazily pick up the beans that have fallen to the
ground. It is shelled where it is found, in the most primitive fashion, and goes
out in a dirty, mixed condition.
Formerly, much of this Kaffa coffee was sent to market through
Boromeda,
Harar, and Dire-Daoua. An average annual crop was about 6,000 bags, or 800,000
pounds, of which something more than one-half usually went through Harar. A
customs and trading station has lately been established at Gambela, on the Sobat
River: and with the development of this outlet, there has been a substantial and
increasing exploitation of the wild-coffee plants since 1913. Large areas of
land have been cleared, with a view to cultivation, and attention is being given
to improved methods of harvesting and of preparing the coffee for the market. At
one time a fair amount of coffee from this region went to Adis Abeba on the
backs of pack mules, a journey of thirty-five or forty days, and then was
carried to Jibuti, nearly 500 miles, part of the way by rail. Now practically
all of it goes to Gambela, thence by steamers to Khartoum, and by rail to the
shipping-point at Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Other African Countries. Practically every part of
Africa seems to be suitable for coffee cultivation, even United South Africa, in
the southern part of the continent, producing 140,212 pounds in 1918. To name
all the countries in which it is grown would be to list nearly all the political
divisions of Africa. Among the largest producers are the British East African
Protectorate, 18,735,572 pounds in 1918; French Somaliland, 11,222,736 pounds in
1917; Angola, 10,655,934 pounds in 1913; Uganda, 9,999,845 pounds in 1918;
former German East Africa, 2,334,450 pounds in 1913; Cape Verde Islands,
1,442,910 pounds in 1916; Madagascar, 707,676 pounds in 1918; Liberia, 761,300
pounds in 1917; Eritrea, 728,840 pounds in 1918; St. Thomas and Prince's
Islands, 484,350 pounds in 1916; and the Belgian Congo, 375,000 pounds in
1917.
A Galla Coffee
Grower, and His Helper, in His Grove of Young Trees near Harar
Angola. Coffee is Angola's second product, and there
are large areas of wild-coffee trees. With a production of nearly 11,000,000
pounds, Angola ranks about third in Africa as a coffee-growing country. The
coffee is gathered and sold by the natives, and there are also several
European companies engaged in the coffee business. The chief coffee belt extends
from the Quanza River northward to the Kongo at an altitude of 1,500 to 2,500
feet. In the Cazengo valley the wild trees are so thick that thinning out is the
only operation necessary to the plantation-owner. When the trees become too
tall, they are simply cut off about two feet above ground; and new shoots appear
from the trunks the following season.
The largest coffee plantation, owned by the Companhia Agricola de Cazengo,
produced in 1913, a record year, nearly 1,500 tons.
Liberia. Coffee is native to Liberia, growing wild
in the hinterland of the negro republic, and in the natural state the trees
often attain a height of from thirty to forty feet. Cultivated Liberian coffee,
Coffea liberica, has become a staple of the civilized inhabitants of the
country, and is grown successfully in hot, moist lowlands or on hills that are
not much elevated. On account of the size of the trees, only about four hundred
can be planted to the acre. In recent years the native Africans have been
planting thousands of trees in the district of Grand Cape Mount. Coffee is grown
in all parts of the republic, but chiefly in Grand Cape Mount and
Montserrado.
General Outlook in Africa. In the African countries
under control of European governments much recent progress has been made in
promoting coffee growing and in improving methods of cultivation.
British interests were reported in 1919 as having started a movement toward
reviving interest in the coffee growing industry in the British possessions in
Africa. The report stated that Uganda, in the East African Protectorate, had
21,000 acres under coffee cultivation, with 16,000 acres more in other parts of
the Protectorate, and 1,300 acres in Nyasaland; also that there is no hope of an
immediate revival of the industry in Natal, where it was killed twenty years ago
by various pests; "but it should certainly be established in the warmer parts of
Rhodesia; and in the northern part of the Transvaal an effort is being made to
bring this form of enterprise into practical existence."
Coffee growing possibilities in British East Africa (Kenya Colony) are
alluring, according to reports from planters in that region. Late in 1920, Major
C.J. Ross, a British government officer there, said that "British East Africa is
going to be one of the leading coffee countries of the world." Coffee grows wild
in many parts of the Protectorate, but the natives are too lazy to pick even the
wild berries.
On the more advanced plantations in all parts of Africa the approved
cultivation methods of other leading countries are carefully followed; especial
care being given to weeding and pruning, because of the rank growth of the
tropics. On the whole, however, little attention is given to intensive
methods.
Arabia. Whether the coffee tree was first discovered
indigenous in the mountains of Abyssinia, or in the Yemen district of Arabia,
will probably always be a matter of contention. Many writers of Europe and Asia
in the fifteenth century, when coffee was first brought to the attention of the
people of Europe, agree on Arabia; but there is good reason to believe the plant
was brought to Arabia from Abyssinia in the sixth century.
Once all the coffee of Arabia went to the outside world through the port of
Mocha on the eastern coast of the Red Sea. Mocha, which never raised any coffee,
is no longer of commercial importance; but its name has been permanently
attached to the coffee of this country.
Mocha (
Moka, or
Morkha) coffee (i.e.
Coffea
arabica) is raised principally in the vilayet of Yemen, a district of
southeastern Arabia. Yemen extends from the north, southerly along the line of
the Red Sea, nearly to the Gulf of Aden. With the exception of a narrow strip of
land along the shores of the Red Sea, the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Gulf
of Aden, it is a rugged, mountainous region, in which innumerable small valleys
at high elevations are irrigated by waters from the melting snows of the
mountains.
Coffee can be successfully grown in any part of Yemen, but its cultivation is
confined to a few widely scattered districts, and the acreage is not large. The
principal coffee regions are in the mountains between Taiz and Ibb, and between
Ibb and Yerim, and Yerim and Sanaa, on the caravan route from Taiz to Sanaa;
between
Zabeed and Ibb, on the route from Taiz to Zabeed; between Hajelah and Menakha,
on the route from Hodeida to Sanaa, and in the wild mountain ranges both to the
north and south of that route; between Beit-el-Fakih and Obal; and between
Manakha and Batham to the north of Bajil. The plant does best at elevations
ranging from 3,500 to 6,500 feet.
Wild Kaffa Coffee
Trees Near Adis Abeba
In the Yemen district, coffee is generally grown in small gardens. Large
plantations, as they exist in other coffee-growing countries, are not seen in
Arabia. Many of these small farms may be parts of a large estate belonging to
some rich tribal chief. The native Arabs do not use coffee in the way it is used
elsewhere in the world. They drink
kisher, a beverage brewed from the
husks of the berry and not from the bean. Consequently, the entire crop goes
into export. But bad conditions of trade routes, political disturbances, and
small regional wars, absence of good cultivation methods, and heavy transit
taxes imposed by the government, have combined to restrict the production of
Yemen coffee.
Land for the coffee gardens is selected on hill-slopes, and is terraced with
soil and small walls of stone until it reaches up like an amphitheater—often to
a considerable height. The soil is well fertilized. For sowing, the seeds are
thoroughly dried in ashes, and after being placed in the ground, are carefully
watched, watered, and shaded. In about a year the shrub has grown to a height of
twelve or more inches. Seedlings in that condition are set out in the gardens in
rows, about ten to thirteen feet apart. The young trees receive moisture from
neighboring wells or from irrigation ditches, and are shaded by bananas.
At maturity the trees reach a height of ten or fifteen feet. Since they never
lose all their leaves at one time, they appear always green, and bear at the
same time flowers and fruits, some of which are still green while others are
ripe or approaching maturity. Thus, in some districts, the trees are considered
to have two or even three crops a year. All the trees begin to bear about the
end of the third year.
A RARE PICTURE SHOWING MOCHA COFFEE
GROWING ON TERRACES IN YEMEN, ARABIA
Cuba. Coffee can be grown in practically every
island of the West Indies, but owing to the state of civilization in many of the
lesser islands, little is produced for international trade, excepting in
Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, and Tobago. In
past years a considerable quantity of good-quality coffee was produced in Cuba,
the annual export in the decade of 1840 averaging 50,000,000 pounds. Severe
hurricanes, adverse legislation, the rise of coffee-growing in Brazil, the
increase in cultivation of sugar and other more profitable crops, practically
eliminated Cuba from the international coffee-export trade.
Martinique. This is a name well known to coffee men,
the world over, as the pioneer coffee-growing country of the western hemisphere.
Gabriel de Clieu introduced the coffee plant to the island in 1723 by bringing
it through many hardships from France. For a time, coffee flourished there, but
now practically none is grown. Such coffee as bears the name Martinique in
modern trade centers is produced in Guadeloupe, and is only shipped through
Martinique.
Jamaica. Coffee was introduced into Jamaica in 1730;
and so highly was it regarded as a desirable addition to the agricultural
resources of the island, that the British Parliament in 1732 passed a special
act providing for the encouraging and fostering of its cultivation. Later, it
became one of the great staples of the country. Disastrous floods in 1815, and
the gradual exhaustion of the best lands since then, have brought about a
decline of the industry, which is now confined to a few estates in the Blue
Mountains and to scattered "settler" or peasant cultivation in the same
districts but at lower altitudes.
The tree was formerly grown at all altitudes, from sea-level to 5,000 feet;
but the best height for it is about 4,500 feet. Four parishes lead in coffee
producing: Manchester, with an area of 5,045 acres; St. Thomas, with 2,315
acres; Clarendon, with 2,172 acres; St. Andrew, with 1,584 acres. Nine other
parishes that raise coffee have less than 1,000 acres each under cultivation.
There were 24,865 acres devoted to coffee in 1900. In addition, it was estimated
that there were 80,000 acres suitable for the cultivation, nearly all being
owned by the government.
Picking Blue
Mountain Berries, Jamaica
Dominican Republic. Coffee was once the leading
staple in the Dominican Republic as in the adjoining Haitian Republic; but in
recent years cacao, sugar, and tobacco have become the predominating crops. Said
to have the world's richest and most productive soil, one-half of the republic's
area is particularly suited to the cultivation of a good grade of coffee of the
highland type. But political and industrial conditions have made for neglect of
its cultivation by efficient methods. Lack of suitable roads has also militated
against the development of the coffee industry.
In spite of many drawbacks, it is to be noted that, from the beginning of the
twentieth century, the coffee-growing area has been gradually expanded until
exports increased from less than 1,000,000 pounds to 5,029,316 pounds in 1918,
although in the next two years there was a recession in the total exports to
1,358,825 pounds in 1920.
The principal plantations are in the vicinity of the town of Moca and in the
districts of Santiago, Bani, and Barahona. Generally speaking, the methods of
cultivation in the Dominican Republic are somewhat crude as compared with the
practise in the larger countries of production in Central America and South
America.
Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe has an area of 619 square
miles, and about one-third of this area is under cultivation. About 15,000 acres
are in coffee, giving employment to upward of 10,000 persons. The average yield
of a plantation of mature trees is about 535 pounds to the acre.
In the early years of the industry in Guadeloupe, production and export were
considerable. From old records it appears that in 1784 the exports amounted to
7,500,000 pounds. During the closing years of the eighteenth century the annual
exports were from 6,500,000 to 8,500,000 pounds, and in the beginning of the
next century they registered about 6,000,000 pounds. Toward the middle of the
nineteenth century the growing of sugar cane overtopped that of coffee in
profit, and many planters abandoned coffee. After 1884, with the decadence of
the sugar industry, coffee was again favored, the government giving substantial
encouragement by paying bounties ranging from $15 to $19 per acre for all new
coffee plantations.
In recent years, considerable
liberica and
robusta have been
planted in place of the exhausted
arabica.
Coffee Pickers
Returning from the Fields, Guadeloupe
Trinidad and Tobago. The islands of Trinidad and
Tobago are small factors in international coffee trading. Coffee can be grown
almost any place on the islands; but its cultivation is confined principally to
the districts of Maracas, Aripo, and North Oropouche. Both the
arabica
and the
liberica varieties are grown.
Honduras. Soil, surface, and climate in Honduras, as
far as they relate to the cultivation of coffee, are similar to those of the
adjoining regions of Central America. The tree grows in the uplands of the
interior, thriving best at an altitude of from 1,500 to 4,000 feet. Scarcity of
labor and insufficient means of transportation have been the chief obstacles in
the way of the large development of the industry.
The departments of Santa Barbara, Copan, Cortez, La Paz, Choluteca, and El
Paraiso have the principal plantations. The ports of shipment are Truxillo and
Puerto Cortés. Annual production in recent years has been about 5,000,000
pounds. In 1889 the United States imported 3,322,502 pounds, but in 1915 its
importations fell away to 665,912 pounds.
British Honduras. British Honduras has never
undertaken to raise coffee on a commercial scale despite the fact that
conditions are not unfavorable to its cultivation. It has failed to produce
enough even for domestic consumption, importing most of what it has needed. Annual
production, as recorded in recent years, has been upward of 10,000 pounds.
Three-Year-Old
Coffee Trees in Blossom, Panama
Panama. Panama presents a very favorable field for
the growing of coffee. The best district is situated in the uplands of the
district of Bugaba, where vast areas of the best lands for coffee-growing exist,
and where climatic and other conditions are most favorable to its growth.
No shade is required in this country; and the only cultivation consists of
three or four cleanings a year to keep down the weeds, as no plowing, etc., are
necessary. Coffee matures from October to January. Water power being abundant,
it is used for running all machinery.
The annual output of the province of Chiriqui, which produces the bulk of the
coffee, is approximately 4,000 sacks of 100 pounds each; all of which is
produced in the Boquete district at present, as the coffee planted in the Bugaba
section is still young and unproductive. The local supply does not meet the
domestic demand; and instead of exporting, a great deal is imported from
adjoining countries, although, there is a protective tariff of six dollars per
hundred pounds.
The Guianas. Coffee has had a precarious existence
in the Guianas. Plants are said to have been brought by Dutch voyagers from
Amsterdam in 1718 or 1720. They flourished in the new habitat to which they were
introduced, and in 1725 were carried from Dutch Guiana into the district of
Berbice in British Guiana and into French Guiana. There the berry was a
considerable success for a time; Berbice coffee especially acquiring a good
reputation; and when Demerara was settled, coffee became a staple of that
region.
Shortage of native labor, and the difficulty of procuring cheap and capable
workers from outside the country, ultimately compelled the practical abandonment
of the crop in all three sections, Dutch, French, and British. In British Guiana
it is now grown mainly for domestic consumption, and the same is true of French
Guiana, which also imports.
From the time of its introduction, about 1718, until about 1880, the only
coffee grown in Surinam, or Dutch Guiana, was the
Coffea arabica. It was
not a bountiful producer, and with labor scarce and unreliable, its cultivation
was expensive. Therefore experiment was made with the
liberica plant.
This proved to be very satisfactory, growing luxuriantly, producing abundantly,
and requiring minimum labor in care. In 1918 some 16,000,000 pounds were
produced.
Ecuador. Though not of great commercial importance,
coffee in Ecuador grows on both the mainland and on the adjacent islands. The
area planted to coffee is estimated at 32,000 acres having an aggregate of about
8,000,000 trees. The trees blossom in December, and the picking season is
through April, May and June. Coffee ranks third in value among the exports of
the country.
Peru. Although possessed of natural coffee land and
climate, little has been done to develop the industry in Peru. A finely flavored
coffee grows at an altitude of 7,000 feet, while that grown in the lowlands
along the Pacific coast is not so desirable. Such small quantities as are grown
are cultivated in the mountain districts of Choquisongo, Cajamarca, Perene,
Paucartambo, Chaucghamayo, and Huanace. The Pacific-coast district of Paces-mayo
also grows a not unimportant crop.
Bolivia. Comparatively little attention is given to
coffee cultivation in Bolivia. Agricultural methods are crude, and are limited
to cutting down weeds and undergrowth twice a year. The coffee is planted in
small patches, or as hedges along the roads or around the fields of other crops.
The first crop is picked at the end of one and a half or two years. The trees
bear for fifteen to twenty years. The average yield is from three to eight
pounds per tree. The best grades of coffee are grown at 2,000 to 6,000 feet
above sea level.
Coffee is cultivated in the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, El
Beni, and Chuquisca. In the department of Santa Cruz there are plantations in
the provinces of Sara, Velasco, Chiquitos and Cordillera. In the Yungas and the
Apolobamba districts of La Paz, its cultivation reaches the greatest importance,
but even there is not of large proportions.
Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina. Coffee is of minor,
almost insignificant, importance in the agriculture of Chile, Paraguay, and
Argentina. In Uruguay the climate is altogether unsuitable for it.
Argentina and Paraguay each have small growing districts. In the first named,
only the provinces of Salta and Jujuy have, at the latest reports, a little more
than 3,000 acres under cultivation. In Paraguay some householders have grown
coffee in their yards solely for their own use. In the Paraguayan district of
Altos, north of Asuncion, a small group of plantations was started before the
outbreak of the World War, and produced about 300,000 pounds of coffee in a
year.
Ceylon. Coffee planting in Ceylon was an important
industry for a century, until the so-called Ceylon leaf disease attacked the
plantations in 1869, and a few years later had practically destroyed all the
trees of the country. Although coffee raising has continued since then, there
has been, especially since the beginning of the twentieth century, a steady
decline in acreage. There were 4,875 acres under cultivation in 1903, 2,433
acres in 1907, 1,389 in 1912, and 941.5 in 1919. Only 2,200 pounds were produced
in 1917. However, the climate and soil of Ceylon seem adapted to coffee culture,
and the experimental stations at Peradeniya and Anuradhapura have been
experimenting in recent years with
robusta,
canephora,
Ugandæ, and a
robusta hybrid for the purpose of reviving the
industry in the country.
Ceylon is one of the oldest coffee-growing countries, the Arabs having
experimented with it there, according to legend, long before the Portuguese
seized the island in 1505. The Dutch, who gained control in 1658, continued the
cultivation, and in 1690 introduced more systematic methods. They sent a few
pounds in 1721 to Amsterdam, where the coffee brought a higher price than Java
or Mocha. However, it was not until after the British occupied the island in 1796,
that coffee growing was carried on extensively. The first British-owned upland
plantation was started in 1825 by Sir Edward Barnes; and for more than fifty
years thereafter coffee was one of the island's leading products. An orgy of
speculation in coffee growing in Ceylon, in which £5,000,000 sterling are said
to have been invested, culminated in 1845 in the bursting of the coffee bubble,
and hundreds were ruined. The peak of the export trade was reached in 1873, when
111,495,216 pounds of coffee were sent out of the country. Even then, the
plantations were suffering severely from the leaf disease, which had appeared in
1869; and by 1887, the coffee tree had practically disappeared from Ceylon.
Ceylon's day in coffee was a cycle of fifty-odd years.
Robusta Coffee
Growing on the Suzannah Estate, Cochin-China
French Indo-China. Coffee culture in French
Indo-China is a comparatively small factor in international trade, although
production is on the increase, particularly from those plantations planted to
robusta,
liberica, and
excelsa varieties. The average
annual export for the five-year period ended with 1918 was 516,978 pounds,
nearly all of it going to France.
The first experiments with coffee growing were begun in 1887, near Hanoi in
Tonkin. The seeds were of the
arabica variety, brought from Réunion, and
the production from the first years was distributed throughout the country to
foster the industry. Eventually
arabica was found unsuitable to the soil
and climate, and experiments were begun with
robusta and other hardier
types.
A survey of the industry of the country in 1916 showed that the plant was
being successfully grown in the provinces of Tonkin, Anam, and Cochin-China, and
that altogether there were about 1,000,000 trees in bearing. The plantations are
mostly in the foot-hills of the mountain ranges or on the slopes, although a few
are located near the coast line at 1,000 feet, or even less, above
sea-level.
The larger and more successful plantations follow advanced methods of
planting and cultivating, while the government maintains experimental stations
for the purpose of fostering the industry. It is believed that French Indo-China
in coming years will assume an important position in the coffee trade of the
world, particularly as a source of supply for France.
Federated Malay States, Including Straits
Settlements. Rubber has been the chief cause of the decline of coffee
industry in the Federated Malay States. Since the closing years of the
nineteenth century coffee has been steadily on the downward path in acreage and
production, with the possible exception of parts of Straits Settlements, which
in 1918 exported, mostly to England, some 3,500,000 pounds of good grade coffee.
The other sections of the federation shipped less than 1,000,000 pounds.
In the early days, planters of the Malay Peninsula knew little about proper
methods of cultivating, and depended mostly upon what they learned of the
practises in Ceylon, which, unfortunately for them, were not at all suited to
the Malay country. They secured their best crops from lowlands where peaty soil
prevailed, and eventually all the coffee grown on the peninsula came from such
regions.
Liberica is mostly favored, and is grown with some success as an
inter-crop with cocoanuts and rubber. The
robusta variety has also been
introduced, but does not seem to do as well as the
liberica. Between
2,300 and 2,600 acres, according to recent returns, have been under coffee as a
catch-crop with cocoanuts, out of a total of 40,000 acres in cocoanut estates.
One planter has been reported as making quite a success with this method of
inter-cropping for coffee, but it is not generally approved.
There has been a general decline in acreage, product, and exports since the
closing years of the nineteenth century, until now the industry is regarded as
practically at a stand-still and likely so to remain as long as rubber shall
continue to hold the commercially high position to which it has attained.
Unsatisfactory prices realized for the crop, poor growth of the trees in some
localities, and the gradual weakening of the trees under rubber as they mature,
are offered as the principal explanations of this decrease in acreage. Nearly
all the Malay crop in recent years has been grown in Selangor, though Negri
Sembilan, Pahang, and Perak continue as factors in the trade.
Coffee Trees of the
Bourbon Variety, French Indo-China
Australia. Although Australia is a prospective
coffee-growing country of large natural possibilities, the
Australian Year
Book for 1921 states that Queensland is the one state in which experiments
have been tried, and that in 1919–20 there were only twenty-four acres under
cultivation. Queensland soils are of volcanic origin, exceptionally rich, and
support
trees that are vigorous and prolific with a bean of fine quality. The
arabica is chiefly cultivated, and the trees can be successfully grown on
the plains at sea-level as well as up to a height of 1,500 or 2,000 feet. The
trees mature earlier than in some other countries. Planted in January, they
frequently blossom in December of the next year, or a month later, and yield a
small crop in July or August; that is, in about two years and a half from the
time of planting. The bean closely resembles the choice Blue Mountain coffee of
Jamaica. For coffee cultivation the labor cost is almost prohibitive.
Picking Coffee on a
North Queensland Plantation
As much as fifteen hundred-weight of beans per acre have been gathered from
trees in North Queensland; and for years the average was ten hundred-weight per
acre. After thirty years of cultivation, no signs of disease have appeared. At
late as 1920, the government was proposing to make advances of fourteen cents a
pound upon coffee in the parchment to encourage the development of the industry
to a point where it would be possible for local coffee growers to capture at
least the bulk of the commonwealth's import coffee trade of 2,605,240
pounds.
Coffee grows well in most all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and in some
of them, as in the Philippines and Hawaii, the industry in past years, reached
considerable importance.
Hawaii. Coffee has been grown in Hawaii since 1825,
from plants brought from Brazil. It has also been said that seed was brought by
Vancouver, the British navigator, on his Pacific exploration voyage, 1791–94.
Not, however, until 1845 was an official record made of the crop, which was then
248 pounds. The first plantations, started on the low levels, near the sea, did
not do well; and it was not until the trees were planted at elevations of from
1,000 to 3,000 feet above sea-level that better returns were obtained.
Coffee is grown on all the islands of the group, but nowhere to any great
extent except on Hawaii, which produces ninety-five percent of the entire crop.
Next in importance, though far behind, is the island of Oahu. On Hawaii there
are four principal coffee districts, Kona, Hamakua, Puna, and Olaa. About
four-fifths of the total output of the islands is produced in Kona. At one time
there were considerable coffee areas in Maui and Kauai, but sugar cane
eventually there took the place of coffee.
COFFEE IN BLOSSOM, CAPTAIN COOK COFFEE
COMPANY ESTATE, KEALAKEKUA, KONA, HAWAII
The Kona coffee district extends for many miles along the western slope of
the island of Hawaii and around famous Kealakekua Bay. The soil is volcanic, and
even rocky; but coffee trees flourish surprisingly well among the rocks, and are
said to bear a bean of superior quality.
Coffee trees in Kona are planted principally in the open, though sometimes
they are shaded by the native
kukui trees. They are grown from seed in
nurseries; and the seedlings, when one year old, are transplanted in regular
lines nine feet apart. In two years a small crop is gathered, yielding from five
to twelve bags of cleaned coffee per acre. At three years of age the trees
produce from eight to twenty bags of cleaned coffee per acre, and from that time
they are fully matured. The ripening season is between September and January,
and there are two principal pickings. Many of the trees are classed as wild;
that is, they are not topped, and are cultivated in an irregular manner and are
poorly cared for; but they yield 700 or 800 pounds per acre. The fruit ripens
very uniformly, and is picked easily and at slight expense.
It is calculated that in the Hawaiian group more than 250,000 acres of good
coffee land are available and about 200,000 acres more of fair quality.
Comparatively little of this possible acreage has been put to use. According to
the census of 1889, there were then 6,451 acres devoted to coffee, having, young
and old, 3,225,743 bearing trees. The yield, in that census year, was 2,297,000
pounds, of which 2,112,650 pounds were credited to Hawaii, the small remainder
coming from Maui, Oahu, Kauai, and Molokai.
A blight in 1855–56 set back the industry, many plantations being ruined and
then given over to sugar cane. After the blight had disappeared, the plantations
were re-established, and prosperity continued for years. Following the American
occupation of the islands in 1898, came another period of depression. With the
loss of the protective tariff that had existed, prices fell to an
unremunerativte figure; and the more profitable sugar cane was taken up again.
After 1912, the increased demand for coffee, with higher prices, led again to
hopes for the future of the industry. Planting was encouraged; and it has been
demonstrated that from lands well selected and intelligently cultivated it is
possible to have a yield of from 1,200 to 2,100 pounds per acre. Improvements
have also been made in pulping and milling facilities. Many of the plantations
are cultivated by Japanese labor.
Coffee Growing Under
Shade, Hamakua, H.I.
Exports of coffee from Hawaii to the principal countries of the world in 1920
were 2,573,300 pounds.
Philippine Islands. Spanish missionaries from Mexico
are said to have carried the coffee plant to the Philippine Islands in the
latter part of the eighteenth century. At first it was cultivated in the
province of La Laguna; but afterward other provinces, notably Batangas and
Cavite, took it up; and in a short time the industry was one of the most
important in the islands. The coffee was of the
arabica variety. In the
middle of the eighteenth century, and after, the industry had a position of
importance; several provinces produced profitable crops that contributed much to
the wealth of the communities where the berry was cultivated. In those days the
city of Yipa was an important trading center. In the period of its prime
Philippine coffee enjoyed fine repute, especially in Spain, Great Britain, and
China (at Hong Kong), those three countries being the largest consumers. At one
time—in 1883
and 1884—the annual export was 16,000,000 pounds, which demonstrates the
importance of the industry at the peak of its prosperity. The leaf blight
appeared on the island about 1889, causing destruction from which there has not
yet been complete recovery. The export of 3,086 pounds in 1917 shows the depths
into which the industry had fallen.
The Bureau of Agriculture at Manila announced in 1915 that an effort was to
be made to re-habilitate the coffee industry of the islands. Nothing came of the
effort, which died a-borning. Since then, several attempts to introduce
disease-resisting varieties of coffee from Java have failed because of lack of
interest on the part of the natives.
Despite the misfortunes that have overwhelmed it in the past and are now
retarding its growth, it is still believed that the industry in these islands
may be re-habilitated. Conditions of soil and climate are favorable; land and
labor are cheap, abundant, and dependable: railroads run into the best coffee
regions, and good cart roads are in process of construction. Some plantations of
consequence are still in existence, and serious consideration is being given to
their development and to increasing their
number.
The Coffee Tree
Thrives in the Lava Soil of South Kona, Island of Hawaii
Guam. Coffee is one of the commonest wild plants on
the little island of Guam. It grows around the houses like shade trees or
flowering shrubs, and nearly every family cultivates a small patch. Climate and
soil are favorable to it; and it flourishes, with abundant crops, from the
sea-level to the tops of the highest hills. The plants are set in straight rows,
from three and a half to seven feet apart, and are shaded by banana trees or by
cocoanut
leaves stuck in the ground. There is no production for export, scarcely enough
for home consumption.
Coffee Plantation
Near Sagada, Bontoc Province, P.I.
Other Pacific Islands. Other islands of the Pacific
do not loom large in coffee growing, though New Caledonia gives promise as a
producer, exporting 1,248,024 pounds in 1916, most of which was
robusta.
Tahiti produces a fair coffee, but in no commercial quantity. In the Samoan
group there are plantations, small in number, in size, and in amount of
production. Several islands of the Fiji group are said to be well adapted to
coffee, but little is grown there and none for export.
Owner's Residence
Adjoining Drying Grounds on One of the Large Estates
Drying Grounds,
Fazenda Santa Adelaide, Ribeirao Preto
COFFEE PREPARATION IN SÃO
PAULO, BRAZIL
