Connecticut western news., 1879-12-03
A Coffee Field in Brazil.
AN INTERESTING DESCRIPTION OF THE WAY IN WHICH OUR COFFEE IS GROWN FOR US.

From very full account of the Bra zilian Coffee Industry in Scri6ner for December, we take this description of the field work, written from personal observation by Herbert H. Smith: In southern Brazil, coffee field sell dom lasts more than thirty years. The plantations are made on the fertile hill sides, where the forest has been grow ing thick and strong. But the soil here is never deep-six or eight inches of mold at the utmost. In the tropics there are no long winters with mats of | dead vegetable matter rotting under the snow. The leaves fall singly, and dry l up until they break into dust logs and decaying branches in the shady woods are carried away by white ants and beetles hence the mold bed increases l very slowly; in twenty-five or thirty years, the strong-growing coffee trees eat it all up. Most planters simply cut down the forest and leave the trees to dry in the sun for six or eight weeks, EWAen they are burned. S., more prevalent, lets the logs rot where they lie, which they do in year or two; in the open sunlight they are saved from insects, and the ground receives large accession to it's strength.
 Back of the house there are two yards or small fields, four acres, perhaps, to- gether. The ground is covered with earthen pots set close together, only leaving little pathways at intervals. Each of the two hundred thousand pots contains thriving young coffee plant. The ground forms 8 gentle slope, and water is constantly running over it, so that it is always soaked. The pots, through orifces at the bottoms, draw up enough of this water to keep the roots moistened. The young plants are pro- tected from the sun by mat screens stretched on poles above the ground.
 This is costly system. Most of the planters take root shoots at random from the old fields and set them at once into unprepared ground. ST. S--'s exper- iment has cost him probably $2O, the pots alone cost $11, LOGO. But he will make at least $50.OO by the opera tion. In the first place, he gains good year in the start that he gives to these young plants. Then they are not put back in the transplanting the pots are simply inverted and the roots come out with the earth. They are set into mold or compost which has been prepared in deep holes. The tender rootlets catch hold of this at once, and in a day or two the plant is growing as we'll as ever.
 The nurslings come from selected seeds of half dozen varieties. ST. - has them planted at first in small pots. A dozen slaves are engaged transplant ing the six-inch high shoots to larger pots. Little tired looking children carry them about on their shoulders, working on as steadily as the old ones, for they are we'll trained. Sr. S. wants to make his plants last fifty years, so he is careful and tender with them. The little blacks will be free in 1892, 80 bis policy is to get as much work as possible from them while he can.
 The plants are set in rows, about ten feet apart. They grow and thrive, and are happy, out on the hillside. Warm sunshine caresses the leaves :; generous rains feed the tender roots :; the ground is kept free from lntruding weeds and bushes, and the planter waits for his harvest. After four years the trees are six feet high and begin to bear. By the sixth year, the crops are very large three or even four pounds per tree at times. Meanwhile, corn and mandioca are planted between the rows. Often in new plantation the expenses are nearly covered by these subsidiary crops.
 In this month of November only few of the slaves are in the new fields. November is the principal gathering month, and almost the whole force must be at work in the bearing orchards. From sunrise to sunset, men, women, and children are gathering the berries in baskets, working silently and steadily under the overseer's eye. Every day, each slave gathers on inc average berries enough to produce fifty pounds of dried coffee. The pickings are collected in carts and brought to the mill-house, where the seeds must be prepared for the market.
 Mckee Rankin has taken "The Danites to Texas,