Domestic science (1914 text-book)

The coffee tree is a very delicate one. It cannot endure the extreme heat; and a frost is death to it. Its home was near the equator in a mountainous country; whenever there is such a region provided with plenty of rainfall, the coffee tree will thrive. As has been said, the coffee trees were first carried eastward from their home. They were taken to Java, Sumatra, the Philippine Islands, and other eastern lands. In Java the sun is very hot, so the delicate coflfee trees are shaded by the overarching branches of shade trees which are planted among them. The story of how the first coffee trees were brought to this country is a very interesting one. A certain merchant who had Digitized by Google settled in southern Brazil thought that the rich soil and wann climate of that country ought to grow coffee trees. So he set out on a long journey across the Atlantic in search of coffee plants. Ocean travel in those days was not so speedy and comfortable as it is now, so a journey such as he undertook was fraught with many dangers. But he reached Africa safely, and did succeed in obtaining a few plants. On the way back an accident on the ship caused a scarcity of water and no one was allowed more than one quart a day. He divided his quart equally among his plants, but when the ship reached land, only two of them were alive. However, he planted these and from them have been raised the greater number of coffee trees in Brazil, although since then many more trees have been brought from Africa to Brazil. One can realize how much this one man's effort has meant to Brazil when it is known that in Brazil today is raised two-thirds of the world's coffee. The people of the United States are the greatest coffee drinkers in the world. They buy enough coffee each year to give to each woman and child in the coxmtry twelve pounds during the year. For this large amount of coffee is spent each year, ninety million dollars. The entire crop of the world amounts to about twenty-three hundred million pounds and all but two hundred million pounds of that amount comes from this hemisphere; most of the remainder comes from the East Indies and other islands of the East. How wonderful it is when we consider that this large crop had its beginning in two little plants which a man nursed so carefully through a tedious ocean voyage. A coffee plantation, always on the sides of hills, is a veryinteresting place. The coffee berries are planted in nurseries, not out in the open fields as are cotton and other plants. They soon sprout and when they are a few inches high, each is transplanted to a little hole over which sticks and leaves are laid to protect it from the sun. Weeds must be kept down, hence the plants are cultivated until they are four years old. Then Digitized by Google they are set out ten feet apart each way. They now begin bearing and may continue to do so for thirty years or more. These trees are a species of evergreen with dark green, glossy leaves, among which may be seen the glistening, dark scarlet berries. As the trees are never allowed to grow more than twelve feet in height, they look like shrubs. The trees begin to put forth their fragrant white blossoms in December, just when our snow storms are beginning to fly through the air. The flowering season lasts several weeks, just as it does with the cotton plant. In April and May the berries begin to ripen and the harvesting also lasts for many weeks. They begin their harvesting when in the United States the farmers begin their sowing. The women and children pick the berries by hand, placing them in baskets or sacks. *