“Send him a letter to come out,” suggested Mark. And this was done, the letter being carried to the city by Enrique Morano himself.
Immediately after Enrique Morano had departed, the steward, Juan Greva, who had been already introduced, came forward, and conducted them from the house to the nursery attached to the place.
“This is where we first grow our coffee plants,” he said, in a strong Spanish accent. “We sow the seeds in the ground and let the plant come up until it is about a foot high before we transplant it to the field.”
“And how long does it take for them to grow as high as that?” asked Sam.
“About a year and a half. Then they are set out in the field, which is first ploughed thoroughly and planted with banana trees to shade the plants. Later on we plant bucuara trees instead of the bananas, as they are more hardy. If the coffee plants were not shaded like that they might dry up.”
“Do they bear at once?” questioned Darry.
“Oh, no, far from it. They sometimes bear a little the fourth or fifth year, but give nothing like a regular crop until the seventh or eighth year.”
“Gracious, what a time to wait!” murmured Frank.
“That is true, Newton,” said the professor. “But after a plantation is once started it will last fifty years or more.”
“One plantation here has lasted seventy-five years,” said Juan Greva. “It yields 1,200 quintals of coffee a season, and the plantation is worth $60,000 of United States money.”