Daily Kennebec journal., 1910-08-20
HOME OF THE COFFEE KING.
Once Hoed in the Fields Where Now
He Grows 100000 Trees.

The home of the coffee king is back
among the rich coffee lands of Brazil.
where. according to a writer in the
Bookkeeper. the blOod-red earth col
ors everything it touches with red
dish hue
Ills plantation. the Monte Allegro. is
three hundred miles due west of Rio
JaneirO. but one must travel twice
that distance on a roundabout journey
to reach it. | rode with the coffee
king for hours and hours through a
continuous succession of coffee trees,
with no end in sight.
when one considers that there are
from 250 to 900 trees to each acre he
will readily believe that on the thirty
two plantations owned by this one man
there are more than 5000 900 trees.
His name. Francisco Schmidt. indi-
| Gates his German origin. A half-cen-
tury ago his parents came to Brazil
as poor emigrants and settled in the
coffee regions of the State of Sac
PauIo. Brazil The youthful Francis
co. who was then only ten years of
age. began work by hoeing the coffee
trees. which was about the only work
he could do He is now the owner of
lands upon which he hoed coffee when
boy.
"A coffee field is beautiful sight
when the trees are in bloom in Oc-
tober, but this beauty is evanescent
The petals soon drop off, and then the
green berries begin to appear III thick
clusters which require months to ma
ture.
at last their color changes to a
rbc
pickers This is the busy season and
the coffee plantations are scenes OF
great activity: thousands of pickers
flock to the coffee fields. The Cher
ries" when picked are sacked and run
through pulpng machines. after which
they arc spread upon great paved
yards for drying.
Here they are turned and turned
for days and weeks; no artificial sys-
TEN of driving equals that of the sun.
which seems to give the beans the
desired flavor. They are now run
through cleaning machines. sorted and
sacked. and are sent by train to the
shipping ports.
"The production of the Schmidt faz-
endas for last year amounted to 30
900 sacks of 1873 pounds of green coffee.
This would FURNISH cup VI tolltt W
every man woman and child in the
United States and Canada for one
week.
1t requires more than 1870 acres of
drying yards. either made Of brick
having or Of beaten earth. to dry this
great production of coffee and four
teen mills run by steam or WATERPROOF
er to do the work of the other pro-
cesses. There are $1,000 acres in the
entire estate although all of it is now
under coffee cultivation.
There are twenty-five railroad sta
tiors on the lands of these various
plantations. besides a number of other
sidings Twelve hundred families,
numbering over eight thousand peo-
pie. live on the plantations and make
their living by cultivating the coffee
trees One family will care for five
thousand trees, but each member of
the family assists in the work as soon
as capable physically.
"Then there are blacksmiths, wagon
makers harness makers and men OF
MANY other trades who spend all of
| their time on the plantation. Each
one has his or her work to do and it
| is all systemized just as in our own
great industrial establishments. All
the OK carts, wagons and harness