Botanists divide it into many species, but it can be practically divided into two sections, Arabian coffee and Liberian coffee, or in point of fact, Asiatic and African. In the Hawaiian Islands coffee grows best between 500 and 2,000 feet above the sea level, though there are cases in which it has done well close to the sea. It requires a loose porous soil and does not thrive well in heavy clayey ground which holds much water. Of such heavy land there is very little in the Hawaiian Islands. The soil is generally very porous.
It is very evident that coffee will thrive and give good results in varying conditions of soil and degrees of heat. In these Islands it grows and produces from very nearly at the sea level to the elevation of 2,600 feet. The highest elevation of bearing coffee, known here, is twenty-five miles from the town of Hilo and in the celebrated Olaa district.
EWA MILL.
VALLEY SCENE, HAWAII.
With such a range it is evident that, in a tropical climate, the cultivation of coffee presents greater opportunities for an investor than other tropical products.