All About Coffee by William H. Ukers (interesting novels in english TXT) ๐
- Author: William H. Ukers
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New land that had just been planted with coffee in plantations reported for 1919โ20 amounted to 7,012 acres; while the area abandoned was 8,725 acres, representing a net decrease in cultivated area of 1,713 acres.
Of the total area devoted to coffee cultivation (126,919 acres), 49 percent was in Mysore, which yielded 35 percent of the total production; while Madras, with 23 percent of the total area, yielded 38 percent of the production. The total production for the year 1920โ21 is reported as 26,902,471 pounds.
Yield varies throughout the country according to the methods of cultivation and the condition of the season. On the best estates in a good season, the yield per acre may be as high as 1,100 or 1,200 pounds, and on poor estates it may not be over 200 or 300 pounds. The arabica variety is chiefly cultivated. The robusta and Maragogipe have been tried, but without much success.
A representative plantation is the Santaverre in Mysore, comprising 400 acres, at an elevation of from 4,000 to 4,500 feet, where the coffee trees, cultivated under shade, produce from 100 to 250 tons of coffee a year. Other prominent estates in Mysore are Cannon's Baloor and Mylemoney, the Hoskahn, and the Sumpigay Khan.
Nicaragua. Coffee trees will grow well anywhere in Nicaragua, but the best locations have altitudes of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above sea level. At such elevations the yield varies from one pound to five pounds per tree annually; but above or below those, the average production diminishes to from one pound to one-half pound a tree.
Lands most suitable for the berry are on the Sierra de Managua, in Diriambe, San Marcos, and Jinotega, and about the base of the volcano Monbacho near Granada. Good land is also found on the island Omotepe in Lake Nicaragua, and around Boaco in the department of Chontales, where cultivation was begun in 1893.
There are also plantations in the vicinity of Esteli and Lomati in the department of Neuva Segovia. The most extensive operations are in the departments of Managua, Carazo, Matagalpa, Chontales, and Jinotega, and from those regions the annual crop has attained to such quantity that it has become the chief agricultural product of the republic. Poor and costly means of transportation on the Atlantic slope have operated to retard the development of the industry there, even though conditions of climate are not unfavorable.
Abyssinia. In the absence of any conclusive evidence to the contrary, the claim that coffee was first made known to modern man by the trees on the mountains of the northeastern part of the continent of Africa may be accepted without reserve. Undoubtedly the plant grew wild all through tropical Africa; but its value as an addition to man's dietary was brought forth in Abyssinia.
Abyssinia, while it may have given coffee to the world, no longer figures as a prime factor in supplying the world, and now exports only a limited quantity. There are produced in the country two coffees known to the trade as Harari and Abyssinian, the former being by far the more important. The Harari is the fruit of cultivated arabica trees grown in the province of Harar, and mostly in the neighborhood of the city of Harar, capital of the province. The Abyssianian is the fruit of wild arabica trees that grow mainly in the provinces of Sidamo, Kaffa, and Guma.
The coffee of Harar is known to the trade as Mocha longberry or Abyssinian longberry. Most of the plantations upon which it is raised are owned by the native Hararis, Galla, and Abyssinians, although there are a few Greek, German, and French planters. The trees are planted in rows about twelve or fifteen feet apart, and comparatively little attention is given to cultivation. Crops average two a year, and sometimes even five in two years. The big yield is in December, January, and February. The average crop is about seventy pounds, and is mostly from small plots of from fifty to one hundred trees, there being no very large plantations. All the coffee is brought into the city of Harar, whence it is sent on mule-back to Dire-Daoua on the Franco-Ethiopian Railway, and from there by rail to Jibuti. Some of it is exported directly from Jibuti, and the rest is forwarded to Aden, in Arabia, for re-exporting.
Abyssinian, or wild, coffee is also known as Kaffa coffee, from one of the districts where it grows most abundantly in a state of nature. This coffee has a smaller bean and is less rich in aroma and flavor than the Harari; but the trees grow in such profusion that the possible supply, at the minimum of labor in gathering, is practically unlimited. It is said that in southwestern Abyssinia there are immense forests of it that have never been encroached upon except at the outskirts, where the natives lazily pick up the beans that have fallen to the ground. It is shelled where it is found, in the most primitive fashion, and goes out in a dirty, mixed condition.
Formerly, much of this Kaffa coffee was sent to market through Boromeda, Harar, and Dire-Daoua. An average annual crop was about 6,000 bags, or 800,000 pounds, of which something more than one-half usually went through Harar. A customs and trading station has lately been established at Gambela, on the Sobat River: and with the development of this outlet, there has been a substantial and increasing exploitation of the wild-coffee plants since 1913. Large areas of land have been cleared, with a view to cultivation, and attention is being given to improved methods of harvesting and of preparing the coffee for the market. At one time a fair amount of coffee from this region went to Adis Abeba on the backs of pack mules, a journey of thirty-five or forty days, and then was carried to Jibuti, nearly 500 miles, part of the way by rail. Now practically all of it goes to Gambela, thence by steamers to Khartoum, and by rail to the shipping-point at Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Other African Countries. Practically every part of Africa seems to be suitable for coffee cultivation, even United South Africa, in the southern part of the continent, producing 140,212 pounds in 1918. To name all the countries in which it is grown would be to list nearly all the political divisions of Africa. Among the largest producers are the British East African Protectorate, 18,735,572 pounds in 1918; French Somaliland, 11,222,736 pounds in 1917; Angola, 10,655,934 pounds in 1913; Uganda, 9,999,845 pounds in 1918; former German East Africa, 2,334,450 pounds in 1913; Cape Verde Islands, 1,442,910 pounds in 1916; Madagascar, 707,676 pounds in 1918; Liberia, 761,300 pounds in 1917; Eritrea, 728,840 pounds in 1918; St. Thomas and Prince's Islands, 484,350 pounds in 1916; and the Belgian Congo, 375,000 pounds in 1917.
Angola. Coffee is Angola's second product, and there are large areas of wild-coffee trees. With a production of nearly 11,000,000 pounds, Angola ranks about third in Africa as a coffee-growing country. The coffee is gathered and sold by the natives, and there are also several European companies engaged in the coffee business. The chief coffee belt extends from the Quanza River northward to the Kongo at an altitude of 1,500 to 2,500 feet. In the Cazengo valley the wild trees are so thick that thinning out is the only operation necessary to the plantation-owner. When the trees become too tall, they are simply cut off about two feet above ground; and new shoots appear from the trunks the following season.
The largest coffee plantation, owned by the Companhia Agricola de Cazengo, produced in 1913, a record year, nearly 1,500 tons.
Liberia. Coffee is native to Liberia, growing wild in the hinterland of the negro republic, and in the natural state the trees often attain a height of from thirty to forty feet. Cultivated Liberian coffee, Coffea liberica, has become a staple of the civilized inhabitants of the country, and is grown successfully in hot, moist lowlands or on hills that are not much elevated. On account of the size of the trees, only about four hundred can be planted to the acre. In recent years the native Africans have been planting thousands of trees in the district of Grand Cape Mount. Coffee is grown in all parts of the republic, but chiefly in Grand Cape Mount and Montserrado.
General Outlook in Africa. In the African countries under control of European governments much recent progress has been made in promoting coffee growing and in improving methods of cultivation.
British interests were reported in 1919 as having started a movement toward reviving interest in the coffee growing industry in the British possessions in Africa. The report stated that Uganda, in the East African Protectorate, had 21,000 acres under coffee cultivation, with 16,000 acres more in other parts of the Protectorate, and 1,300 acres in Nyasaland; also that there is no hope of an immediate revival of the industry in Natal, where it was killed twenty years ago by various pests; "but it should certainly be established in the warmer parts of Rhodesia; and in the northern part of the Transvaal an effort is being made to bring this form of enterprise into practical existence."
Coffee growing possibilities in British East Africa (Kenya Colony) are alluring, according to reports from planters in that region. Late in 1920, Major C.J. Ross, a British government officer there, said that "British East Africa is going to be one of the leading coffee countries of the world." Coffee grows wild in many parts of the Protectorate, but the natives are too lazy to pick even the wild berries.
On the more advanced plantations in all parts of Africa the approved cultivation methods of other leading countries are carefully followed; especial care being given to weeding and pruning, because of the rank growth of the tropics. On the whole, however, little attention is given to intensive methods.
Arabia. Whether the coffee tree was first discovered indigenous in the mountains of Abyssinia, or in the Yemen district of Arabia, will probably always be a matter of contention. Many writers of Europe and Asia in the fifteenth century, when coffee was first brought to the attention of the people of Europe, agree on Arabia; but there is good reason to believe the plant was brought to Arabia from Abyssinia in the sixth century.
Once all the coffee of Arabia went to the outside world through the port of Mocha on the eastern coast of the Red Sea. Mocha, which never raised any coffee, is no longer of commercial importance; but its name has been permanently attached to the coffee of this country.
Mocha (Moka, or Morkha) coffee (i.e. Coffea arabica) is raised principally in the vilayet of Yemen, a district of southeastern Arabia. Yemen extends from the north, southerly along the line of the Red Sea, nearly to the Gulf of Aden. With the exception of a narrow strip of land along the shores of the Red Sea, the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Aden, it is a rugged, mountainous region, in
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