COFFEE, the seed of a small evergreen tree, which is cultivated in tropical countries, supposed to be native to Abyssinia, although it was early found in Arabia. The plant be longs to the genus Coffea, order Rubiacece. In the wild state it grows to a height of from 6 to 30 feet, but in cultivation it is pruned and kept between 6 and 10 feet. The leaves arc green, glossy on the upper side, and somewhat resemble those of the laurel, but less dry and thick. The flowers are white, fragant and grow in clusters from the axils of the branches. The fruit, often called berries, grows in clus ters of from 3 to 12, each with a short stem or sessile. The fruit when ripe resembles in appearance a dark red cherry, or a medium-sized cranberry. Each berry contains two seeds em bedded in a yellowish, sweetish pulp which, when ripe, is delicious.
The trees are raised from seed grown in nurseries, and when of a size to endure varia tions of temperature, usually in about six months' time, they are transplanted to the coffee orchard. They begin to bear when three years old, and yield fruit for about 20 years. Considerable space is left between the trees, and corn, bananas and plantain are grown among them, especially when young. The first year's crop is small, but when in full bearing a tree will yield from one to five pounds, according to location and variety. The regions best adapted to the growth of coffee are between the parallels of 15 north and 15 south latitude, and from 1,000 to 4,000 feet above sea-level. It is culti vated from lat. 25° N. to 30° S. in places where the temperature does not fall below 55° F. Moist and somewhat shady slopes are found most desirable. Little streams of water are conducted to the roots of the trees, which are kept very wet until the fruit is nearly ripe; then the water is turned off to keep the fruit from becoming too succulent. The fruit varies in size and color according to the altitude in which it grows; that from highlands is small and green; that grown on lowland and near the coast is larger and of a yellowish tinge. The wild trees of Liberia, which grow in the low lands, produce the largest fruit known, but it is of inferior quality. The coffee from the Far East can be distinguished by its large bean of a yellow color, while that of Central and South America is smaller and of greenish color. The fruit is harvested with great care, cloths being placed under the trees before shaking them. The fruit is then exposed to the sun to dry, after which it is pulped, washed, dried again, hulled, cleaned and sorted before it is ready for the market. In some places, espe
cially Brazil, the bean is pulped by machinery as soon as it is taken from the tree, and thus the time necessary to get the coffee ready for mar ket is shortened.
Some of the coffee-producing countries of the world to-day are Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica, Central America, and parts of Africa, Arabia, Java and Ceylon. Brazil has a larger coffee bearing area than any other country; it produces more than two-thirds of all the coffee consumed in the world. Coffee planting in Brazil has been the most successful farming in the world. Sao Paulo, a city of 400,000, owes its prosperity to the trade in the coffee raised in the great orchards in the vicinity. What has made coffee growing especially profitable in Brazil is the °valorization scheme carried on by the Brazil ian government, whereby it stores the coffee in warehouses when prices show a downward tendency, advancing the planters' loans on it as security. This practice was put an end to, so far as the United States was concerned, in 1913. In some of the orchards there are about 5,000,000 trees. Large quantities of the Brazilian coffee are shipped annually to Aden (Arabia) and reshipped to other parts of the world as mocha. The producing of coffee in Yemen, or Wady Negram, or anywhere near Mocha is a thing of the past; but one kind of coffee berry raised in Brazil and in some other countries much resembles in form and flavor the old market mocha. The red lands in the province of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, seem to be particularly favorable to the growth of the tree, and this section seems immune to the leaf disease which has destroyed the industry in Ceylon and in some parts of the West Indies. The prepon derating volume of the coffee crop of Brazil makes its annual production a matter of world wide importance, and with the seasonal reports of the condition and prospective yield of each Brazilian crop, account is taken of stocks on hand in the world's markets and new estimates made of the stocks held secretly in storage in Brazil, in order that a new price may be made. Within the last few years the Liberian coffee plant, which is a larger and harder variety, has been introduced into Ceylon. So far it has suc cessfully resisted the leaf disease, so that it now seems likely that Ceylon may again be among the places producing an excellent quality of coffee. The names given coffee are usually those of the cities from which shipments are made.