CULTIVATION OF THE COFFEE PLANT Page 15

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