The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-04-16
COFFEE In BRAZIL
CARPENTER DESCRIBES HIS VISIT
TO THE BIGGEST PLANTA-
TION ON EARTH
rs OWNED BY ENGLISHMEN

1t Has 100000 Trees and Grows
Enough Every Year to Give Us
Each "a Pot-HOw the Coffee Soil
Looks and How the Trees Are
Grown-Among the Pretty Itai-
ian Coffee Sorters.
Copyrighted, 1899, by Frank G. Carpenter.
SAC PAULO, Brazil, March 10.-The
biggest coffee plantation in the world
lies more than 800 miles inland by train
from Sac Paulo.; 1t is the Dumont cof-
fee estate, owned by a big English syn
dicate with a capital of several million
dollars The plantation has about $780,
OO0 trees, and 1t produces enough coffee
annually to give every man, woman and
child in the United States daily cup for
a week
BRAZILIAN COFFEE.
Before 1 describe my visit to this big
estate let me give you few coffee facts.
Brazil is the chief coffee country of the
universe. 1t produces two-thirds of all
the coffee consumed by man, and most
of it's product Is used in the United
States. We are the chief coffee drinkers
Of the world We drank SOC, 900, 900 pounds
last year, which was more than was con-
sumed by the people of Europe. The
great pot from which our supply comes
is Brazil, and the center Of the pot is
this state of Sac Paulo. I went to the
Dumont fazenda on the railroad through
some of the richest coffee lands of the
world. 1 passed hundreds Of thousands
of acres of coffee trees. going by plan
tation after plantation, where there were
thousands of men at work picking cof-
fee, and by vast cement floors, upon
which the coffee beans were drying in
the sun.
HOW COFFEE SOIL LOOKS.
The color Of the best. coffee lands here
is of a bright red. 1t is Just like brick
dust, and in this ride over the hills Of
Brazil 1 found everything covered with
a brickGust hue The weather has been
dry for some time. The sun has turned
the earth to powder. 1t has filed the air
with red clouds. The bushes and trees
are tinged with it, and in places the
freshly plowed coffee trees are red in
stead of green.
The wind was blowing as 1 rode over
the country, and the children at the sta
AOOAANN
white collar soon acquired red edging.
My cuffs became bright vermillion. My
hands were coated red, and the only thing
about me not seriously changed was my
hair, which my friends indulgently call
golden, but which those who like me not
say is of this same coffee soil color-it
has a brickdust hue.
Unpleasant as the soil Is in the shape
of dust, it is said to be Just the thing
for coffee. 1t lies here In beds from
three to four feet deep upon a layer of
gravel and in 1t the coffee plant grows
and wakes fat
WHERE COFFEE GROWS REST.
The best plantations are on the sides OF
the hills, at an elevation of from 1000 to
5000 feet above the sea. These are the
attitudes of the rolling plains through
which have been travelling. They are
all covered with coffee We were often
for hours in nothing but coffee planta-
lions. vast gardens of green bushes shin
ing out against a background of red
Here the men were blowing, there they
were picking and in other places they
were hoeing the coffee. Tho trees were
everywhere clean and most of the planta-
tons were as well cared for as a garden
Now we went by a forest which had