The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-07-27
A WOMAN WHO
PLANTS COFFEE
Success Fell to Her Lot in Mex
leo Where She Went for
Husbands Health.

Ny Gomez pIanTatlon Is one or tht
best managed in Mexico, so 1 have beer
told" admitted Mrs. Jane P. Baird
of Vera Cruz, Mexico, when questioned
by a reporter u am my own man,
ager, supervisor and saleswoman.
Eighteen years ago I was a girl
in Massachusetts and knowing that the
man l loved had consumption I mar
ried him. 1t WASH t considered as dan
gerous in those days as it is now, but
still had l known that l would catch
the disease the next day I should have
married him.
Soon after the birth of our first
child persuaded him to give up his
place in the factory and go south. We
went to Texas, near Galveston.
eve were there for a year, when
an old doctor told me that if I would
take my husband to Mexico, apd make
him work and exercise out of doors
he would live much longer even if he
didn t get entirely we'll Ny husband
had got to the melancholy stage and
it was pretty hard to make him be-
lieve there was anything to look for
ward to.
We had two children then, and one
was only three months old, but I knew
we couldn't afford to put off our de-
parture. We spent about twenty
months going from one place to an
other, trying to find some place that
would suit my husband.
"We reached Vera Cruz finally. |
There we found small farm a few
miles from the city that suited us and
we started to raise coffee.
"A few of our plants bore in their
third year. The next year we had
coffee to sell, but because there was
only few dozen pounds we had to
lose about half the profit by disposing
of it to a large coffee planter, who
shipped it to New York.
Such arrangements suited neither
my husband nor me. We determined
to go into the business sufficiently to
make it pay. Ten years from the time
We moved into our little farm we ship
ped our first coffee direct to this mar
1et. Ny husband died three years ago
and since then 1 have conducted the
business.
"There are two varieties of eoffeei !
-aised in Mexico. That which thrives I
pest on the temperate tablelands is I
,alled by the natives arabica, and is :
much like mocha. It is easily affected
" the weather and is neither as thrifty S
Tor as prolific as the hot country varie- :
Y, which resembles Java coffee. 5
AS my farm is in Vera Cruz it is :
his hot country coffee that / cultivate /
md know most about. 1t is best &
by seed, which are planted t
n beds under cultivated trees c
''The coffee plant seldom blossoms
'efore its third year. At that time
IS foliage is a vivid green, the blooms t
nd subsequent berries growing along l
he stems in clusters. The blooms are 2
more like jasmine blossoms than any I
lower here and sweeter, more fragrant g
han the flower of the orange. f
1.-The coffee berry is at first a glossy t
reen, then brown and finally a dark s
rimsnn. Picking, which must always t
e done by hand, is slow and tedious S
recess, as each berry must be picked il
sparately, and dropped into the bag "
T basket which the picker carries sus- d
ended around his neck As a rule, I
he coffee piekers in Mexico are peon !;
-omen and children. The pay is % p
ents in Mexican money, which amounts "
, about II cents in United States cur @
ency, for each basket or bag of fifteen i
ounds. L
AT present about the only problem p
hat the coffee planter of Mexico has Ia
} face is that of labor The Mexican o.
cons are very much like the American a
egro, and while people from the South e1
m States find them easy enough to get b
4 with, those who have lived in the Il
.erth, especially in New England, are u
arder to please. II
''While the peon viii only work when le
e feels like it he requires that you ST
eat him with the utmost consideration ct
"a dignity. They are the most indie Il
endent people in the world and are hi
ways suspicious of the gringos, as &C
icy call all white people. The peon n
ay be without place 10 lay his ii
lad and half starving, but he will not OF
ork for gringo he dislikes. nj
Some of the largest coffee planters h
e solving this problem by importing 10
linese coolies. The Celestial BY rea-
n of his energy, industry and eager
IS TO save money is about as salts
ctory a servant as could be asked.
arfeetly content to work year in and