Successful cultivation of coffee, like that of almost any other valuable crop, requires certain conditions of soil and climate. These are a rich earth, a certain rarefication of air and plenty of moisture. The terra roxa (red earth) of Brazil is very rich, and is the result of the decomposition of rocks of basaltic origin. The best lands are at an altitude of one thousand five hundred feet, or more, above sea level and require eighty inches or more of annual rainfall. Furthermore, hilly lands with an eastern exposure are generally chosen. Although plantations are sometimes found on comparatively level ground. Too much or too little moisture, or a frost, will spoil a season’s crop. A coffee field, with its trees laid out in regular rows stretching as far as the eye can see to the top of the hills in either direction, is a beautiful sight. In the foreground the rows of trees, with the roads at regular intervals and the contrast of green against the red soil, are plainly visible; but, as distance increases, they blend together until the whole seems a field of living green, gently swaying in the breeze. Like a great panorama these fields spread out in every direction in the neighbourhood of Riberão Preto, the centre of the richest coffee district.
Coffee trees are a matter of slow growth, requiring at least four years to mature after the young plants are set out. The seed is always planted in the woods, where patches are cleared for that purpose, and where the necessary shade and moisture are found. They are always transplanted during the rainy season, when about eighteen months old and perhaps a foot high, and during this work the tender plants are handled very carefully. In many countries the young trees are shaded by banana stalks, but that method is not followed in Brazil. Corn is oftentimes planted between the rows of coffee trees to bring an extra crop, but this method is not approved by the best planters, as coffee trees exhaust the soil rapidly enough by themselves. On some of the old fazendas the plants are set in rows not more than eight or ten feet apart, but the newer plantations are at a distance of from twelve to fifteen feet. The trees are carefully pruned, and the ground weeded each year, and a crop will be produced about the fifth year after planting. If the trees are left to grow untrimmed they will reach a height of eighteen or twenty feet, but they are usually kept down to a height of about twelve feet, or less, and are not allowed to spread out too much. One quickly learns to distinguish between a well-kept and a poorly-cultivated coffee plantation by its trimmed or untrimmed appearance. The growth of weeds is sometimes allowed, especially on hillsides, as the roots of the weeds prevent the soil from washing during the tropical downpours. Otherwise the rich surface dirt will disappear down into the valleys below. A planter’s credit was at one time determined by the number of trees he owned, and that was the reason that some of the fields were planted so closely together. It has been proven, however, by experience, that close planting does not pay. One of the most successful planters told me that even the wagon roads, which are left at intervals of perhaps five hundred feet, were not a loss, for the trees on each side produced so much more abundantly that they made up for the row or two of trees left out for the road.
The coffee tree is an evergreen, and usually has a single trunk with many branches. The leaves are long, smooth and dark green in appearance. They are almost a shiny green like the holly, and look as though they had been varnished. The blossoms grow in great abundance in the axils of the branches, and a field in blossom is most entrancing. In the early morning, after a refreshing shower, or while the dew still lingers, the fields with their small, white blossoms are not only a beautiful sight to the eye, but an aroma arises from them that fills the air with a sweet perfume. The fruit usually grows in clusters of from a half dozen to a dozen berries, which surround the joints almost like a necklace just over the leaves. When ripe, the coffee berries resemble very much a cranberry of medium size. Then the coffee field is again a pretty picture, for the white flowers have turned into beautiful red berries, and the bushes resemble richly loaded cherry trees. The tree will produce abundant crops after the sixth year, and I saw fields that were at least thirty-five years old, and still bearing profitable crops. It is said that the coffee trees will produce as long as the life of man. There are two kinds of trees cultivated in Brazil: the common and the yellow-berried, or Botucatu, and generally called the Bourbon. The yellow-berried variety develops more rapidly, and gives more abundant crops, but its cultivation is more difficult. This latter is the one most generally cultivated at the present time, but it brings a lower price because it is said to be inferior to the other in aromatic qualities and the weight of the grain. Its introduction came about when the price was very high and every planter was anxious to obtain as great a production as possible.
The coffee trees begin to blossom in September and continue to bloom for several weeks. The maturing process is also irregular, and covers a period of a couple of months. It requires a number of months for the berries to mature, and in the state of São Paulo, for instance, the first picking does not take place until the last of May or first of June. From that time on the plantations are scenes of activity for five or six months, until the last of the crop is dispatched to the commission houses in Santos. The fields will then be filled with men, women and children with their baskets, gathering up the precious fruit, ready to be taken to the drying yards.
At harvesting time thousands of pickers flock to the coffee regions from other parts of Brazil, as they are able to earn good wages for a few weeks. Many whole families will travel for days on foot, when they have not enough money to pay their railroad fares. There is often considerable rivalry among the pickers to see who can pick the most; but there is also the further incentive to rapid work in the fact that all wages are paid at so much for a fixed quantity. Fifty pounds is considered a good day’s picking when it is done from the trees. The method in general operation on the large fazendas is to strip the branches of all their coffee berries, by pulling them between the fingers, and then others follow up and pick up the berries, leaves, etc., from the ground, or the sheets which have been spread out to catch them. In this way only one picking is made even though some of the berries have become overripe, and others are green owing to the uneven ripening. This causes a considerable unavoidable loss. In an extraordinary season a tree may produce as much as seven pounds of coffee, but a fair average is three pounds per tree.
DRYING COFFEE.
The gathering and preparation of the berries is a difficult and laborious operation involving a number of processes. The large plantations are equipped with all the necessary paved yards and machinery for this work, and the smaller planters send theirs to central factories, or beneficios, as they are called. The coffee must be washed, pulped, dried and submitted to several stages of preparation. The washing is a simple process, but the work of drying requires the greatest care, for it exercises a great influence on the value of the coffee. There are at least two distinct processes in the preparation of the coffee, but it is always first washed and then soaked in order to soften the pulp, so that it can be removed, for the coffee beans are in the centre. This “pulping” is done by a revolving cylinder set with teeth, after which the beans are run into tanks for a thorough washing to remove all traces of the pulp.
Some have a series of these tanks through which the coffee is passed, and the beans are then carried by means of running water out through the paving yards. On these great yards of beaten earth, paved with bricks or cemented, and sometimes tarred (for they dry quicker on a tarred floor), the berries are spread out in thin layers to dry. If you would take up a handful at this time you would find they were covered with a soft gummy substance. No artificial drying process equals that of the sun’s rays. Men with wooden rakes, and in their bare feet, are kept constantly busy turning over the berries to hasten this process, which oftentimes requires many days, and even weeks, for it is necessary that they be evenly dried.