CULTIVATION OF THE COFFEE PLANT Page 10

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