When left to the free growth of nature, the coffee-tree attains a height of from fifteen to twenty feet; in the plantations, however, the tops are generally cut off in order to promote the growth of the lower branches, and to facilitate the gathering of the crop. Its leaves are opposite, evergreen, and not unlike those of the bay-tree; its blossoms are white, sitting on short foot-stalks, and resembling the flower of the jasmine. The fruit which succeeds is a green berry, ripening into red, of the size and form of a large cherry, and having a pale, insipid, and somewhat glutinous pulp, enclosing two hard and oval seeds or beans, which are too well known to require any further description.
The seeds are known to be ripe when the berries assume a dark red colour, and if not then gathered, will drop from the trees.
To be cultivated to advantage, the coffee-tree requires a climate where the mean temperature of the year amounts to 68°, and where the thermometer never falls below 55°. It is by nature a forest tree requiring shade and moisture, and thus it is necessary to screen it from the scorching rays of the sun by planting rows of umbrageous trees at certain intervals throughout the field. These also serve to protect it from the sharp winds which would injure the blossoms. It cannot bear either excessive heat or a long-continued drought, and where rain does not fall in sufficient quantity, artificial irrigation must supply it with the necessary moisture.
In Java the zone of the coffee-plantations extends between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above the level of the sea; and the primitive forest is constantly receding before them. Frequently, on felling the woods, a part of the original trees is left standing to shade the tender coffee-plants; but oftener the rows are made to alternate with those of the sheltering dadab. Thus a new and luxuriant grove replaces the old thicket of nature’s planting. Straight paths, kept carefully clean, lead through the dense, dark green shrubbery, under whose thick cover the wild cock hastily retreats when surprised by the wanderer. When the trees are in flower, the branches seem to bend under a weight of snow, from the number of dazzling white blossoms, which form a pleasing contrast to the dark and lustrous foliage, while high above, the dadabs extend their airy crowns, whose light green leaves are agreeably interspersed with flowers of a brilliant red. A few months later, when the fruits are ripening into carmine a scene of the most bustling animation ensues, for old and young are busily employed in plucking the swelling berries, and hurrying with filled baskets to the nearest pulping mill.
In Ceylon the native woodmen are singularly expert in felling forest trees preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. Turning to advantage the luxuriance of tropical vegetation, which lashes together whole forests by a maze of interlacing climbers as firm and massy as the cables of a line-of-battle ship, their practice in steep and mountainous places is to cut half-way through each stem in succession, till an area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final overthrow. They then sever some tall group on the eminence, and allow it in its decent to precipitate itself on those below, when the whole expanse is in one moment brought headlong to the ground, the falling timber forcing down those beneath it by its weight, and dragging those behind to which it is harnessed. The crash occasioned by this startling operation is so loud that it is audible for two or three miles in the clear and still atmosphere of the hills.
Like the sugar-cane, or indeed any other plant cultivated by man, the coffee-tree is exposed to the ravages of many enemies. Wild cats, monkeys, and squirrels prey upon the ripening berries, and hosts of caterpillars feed upon the leaves. Since 1847 the Ceylon plantations have been several times invaded by swarms of the Golunda, a species of rat which inhabits the forests, making its nest among the roots of the trees, and, like the lemmings of Lapland, migrating in vast numbers when the seeds of the nillo-shrub (Strobilanthes), its ordinary food, are exhausted. ‘In order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee, the Golunda eats such slender branches as would not sustain its weight, and feeds as they fall to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its incisors, that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife.’[19]
Another great enemy of the Ceylon planters is the Lecanium Coffeæ, a species of coccus, which establishes itself on young shoots and buds, covering them with a noisome incrustation of scales, from the influence of which the fruit shrivels and drops off. A great part of the crop is sometimes lost, and on many trees not a single berry forms from the invasion of this insect plague.
THE COFFEE RAT.
Theobroma,—food for gods,—the Greek name given by Linnæus to the cacao or chocolate tree, sufficiently proves how highly he valued the flavour of its seeds.