All About Coffee

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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 alt.i.tudes 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 quant.i.ties. 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 alt.i.tudes, 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 quant.i.ty of that is available for export. The state of Michoacan is especially favored by climate, alt.i.tude, 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 alt.i.tudes 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

Since the World War American buyers have shown greater interest in the Tapachula coffee grown in Chiapas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 munic.i.p.alities. Mountain sections are considered to be superior.

The largest plantations are in the region which includes the munic.i.p.alities 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 princ.i.p.ally on the Pacific slope and in the central plateaus of the interior. Plantations are located in the provinces of Cartago, Tres Rios, San Jose, Heredia, and Alajuela. In the province of Cartago are several extensive new estates on the slope to the Atlantic coast. The San Jose 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 alt.i.tudes 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PICKING COSTA RICA COFFEE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE ESTATE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF COSTA RICA]

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, princ.i.p.ally in Madura, Salem, and Coimbator, in Cochin, in Travancore, and, on a restricted scale, in Burma, a.s.sam, 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 compet.i.tion with Brazilian coffee.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 alt.i.tudes 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 quant.i.ty that it has become the chief agricultural product of the republic. Poor and costly means of transportation on the Atlantic slope have operated to r.e.t.a.r.d the development of the industry there, even though conditions of climate are not unfavorable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 quant.i.ty. 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.