Morning journal and courier., 1888-06-09

covered with loose soil. Some six months | are required for germination, sprouting and sufficient progress of the plant to render I transplanting successful. Then the young
 shoots are placed in the almaciga or nursery. ground from ten to twelve months from seed- | ing. Here they remain under a sufficient I amount of cultivation to keep the soil loose 1 and mellow, and prevent weeds from collect ing for about two years. They have been set | eighteen inches apart, and fully fifty per cent. more in number than will be required have been allowed to grow, so that the most vigorous plants may be selected for perma- nent use.
 When the latter stage is reached the entire plantation, where it is sufficiently level to permit, is laid out in rectangular plats of about two hundred varas or six hundred feet | long and half that width, with caminos or l roadways of from twelve to fifteen feet be- I tween the plats. The plants, or coffee trees as they are now become, are set in cross rews about twelve feet from center to center in each direction. This done and the roots we'll set-for the roots develop rapidly and pros fusely, throwing out myriads of flores from a great earrot-shaped tap which often reaches length of ten feet-and your plan- tation is provided with 8 coffee orchard which with fair amount of care and atten- tion will need no removal of trees for from a quarter to half century, and will increase in yield each year until about the fifteenth year, when the trees may be said to have at- tained their best bearing age; though many will continue increasing in yield until two score years old. In their fourth year each tree under average conditions will yield a pound of marketable coffee. The average increase per year is about half a pound; so that an ordinary tree is pretty sure of pro- ducing five pounds ct twelve years, and it is claimed that aged patriarchs are known to have yielded from fifty to seventy pounds in one year. These gre rare instances, however, and the quality seems to suffer when extraor- dinaTy productiveness is secured. This point is given the closest study and atten- tion. To secure the greatest yield per one hundred trees and yet retain the required quality is precisely wherein lie the best possibilities with the coffee grower. And
 here necessarily follows the wisest hus-
 bandry in cultivation and pruning. A eof- fee orchard requires just about the same
 care in cultivation as frst-class Ameri-
 can farmer will expend upon we'll kept
 field of corn. Perhaps a trifle mere hoeing
 and weeding required owing to the
 luxurfance of all tropical vegetation.
 There is also much in proper pruning. If
 left to grow at will the coffee tree would attain 8 height of from twenty-five to thir-
 ty feet. But convenience in gathering the
 fruit, betterment of quality and increase of
 productiveness, are all attained by constant
 pruning. The height of the tree is thus
 always kept below six feet, a pyramidal
 form is retained, the lower branches being
 permitted considerable growth laterally; and
 many branches, twigs and all deadening
 material are removed; for the best condi-
 tions require that both blossom and fruit
 have an abundance of air and sunshine.