The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-14
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON
 THE HEAVENLIEST BERRY
From the New Yorl. Mall nnd r.nres.

From the New York Mall and Express. F F APPY Is the man whose office is
 80 situated that from time to E time all day there drifts in through his window from the uueer spicy and fruity regions to the west ward of Church street the aroma of roasting coffee. Do the care of the day harass2 Is one inclined to fret and fume. to kick against the bricks? Ah in floats that delicious. that soothing.A that ever- tranquilizing. that grief-allaying perfume. All Arabia bfeathes from it. It rebukes irritation. Coffee may excite the nerves when taken internally in considerable quantities, but it soothes them before it excites them. and this aroma that pours in from the roasting pans below is alto gether quietlng It suggests repose, con- tentment, wise reflection, the fullness of peace and the peace of fullness. Not only Is it good in suggestion; it is good in itself. It Is worth turning away from the world to enjoy. It is full of the mystery of sense-ravishment. One wonders what on earth it Is that makes coffee smell so good-one wonders only for a moment, and then gives up the conundrum gladly in the fine and philosophic enjoyment of the aroma
 It Is doubtful if these observations, proper to any occasion or no occasion as they are, would ever have been made if the Pan-American coffee conference had not been in sssion in this city. This con frence brought us strange tidings indeed. It is this, that the world Is not consuu- ing half the coffee it ought to consume. and that America in particular is not where 1t ought to beat the head. natur- aily-in the procession of the cotfee-drink- ing nations.
 It Is true that we consumed in th,. country, in 1901. 10.6 pounds of eoefaa na~ capita against SIS pounds per capita in 1880 and pounds in 1870. and that in the last fiscal year. we imported 1.Oe1 .Oo4. 252 pounds of coffee from Brazil alone Rut poor little countries like Holland. Rel gium, Denmark and Norway eonsuros a more coffee per capita than we do. Th,nl, of the people of Norway being able to anord a greater amount of coffee to each man. woman and child than we Ameri- cans, the princes of the earth in expendi- ture and self-indulgence, allow our selvesl
 Our case is so fragrant that the pan- American coffee congress, consisting of gentlemen interested In the production of the berry in the West Indies. in Central America, in Brazil in Colombia. Vene- zuela and Mexico came here to endeavor to rouse us to our duty in this regard. It seems ihat the business of raising coffee, from being one of the most profitable in the world, has degenerated into a rather precarious one. As recently as 1895 our consul general at Mexico produced evi- dence to show that the profits of tie cof- fee growers of that country were any where from 100 to 300 per cent. The Bra gillian producers for many years made large profits. One hundred per cent was rot unusual thers. Sartos-Dumont is making alrships todey with the aid of millions derived from coffee.
 But naturally these great profits had to come to an end. All the tropical world seemed to go Into coffee raising at once. Every little country in America and Africa sent us coffee if 1t had chance,