| lbs. | ||
| 1855 | . . . | 11,506,283 |
| 1856 | . . . | 9,935,000 |
| 1857 | . . . | 8,245,000 |
| 1858 | . . . | 9,814,000 |
| 1859 | . . . | 13,457,000 |
The exports of coffee from the island of Cuba, which were in 1840 upwards of 2,000,000 arrobas, were in 1858 but 21,000; and in 1859, 5000 or 6000.
Brazil.—The coffee-plant has been known in Brazil for many years; it is but about fifty years, however, since the first regular plantation was made by Mr. Moke, a Belgian, who brought the cultivation of coffee to great perfection. His plantation is still in the neighbourhood of the capital, and is carried on by his son with much success. It is astonishing to what an extent coffee has been cultivated since Mr. Moke first made his plantation. Two millions of bags of 160 lbs. each are annually exported from Rio de Janeiro, taking the average of the last seven years; 1862 was, however, short of this about half a million bags. At Barahyba do Sul, which is within a few miles of Rio, there are plantations employing six and seven hundred slaves.
The best plantations are those owned and conducted by foreigners—chiefly English, French, and Belgian—they have an air of neatness and comfort about them of which those owned by Brazilians and Portuguese are totally destitute. The foreigners use improved machinery also in preparing the berry for market, which the Brazilians, with some exceptions, do not. The coffee-berry contains two seeds, covered with a gummy, mucilaginous substance, and enclosed in a skin which is thick, sweet, and dark and red when ripe. The foreigners take off this skin by means of machinery, and the beans are washed until they are divested of the mucilage which covers them. They are then dried and put into bags ready for market. The Brazilians dry the beans with the skin on. In the process of drying, the skin first becomes dark, and finally black, and when crisp, is rubbed off the bean, which is then washed. In this process, however, there is great danger of fermentation. The skin contains a vast amount of saccharine matter, and successful attempts have been made to extract from it sugar and spirit; but either through poor machinery, or other mismanagement, it was found to be unprofitable, and the experiment was abandoned. The skin is exceedingly sweet, almost as much so to the taste as the sugar-cane.
The coffee-plant can be propagated from the seed, but the most prevalent method in Brazil is by young plants, which may be had by the thousand on old plantations. The young shrub is taken up in August—generally when it is about two years old—and planted in good soil. The fourth year it produces coffee, and the fifth year it commences to bear regular crops, the yield being from a pound and a half to three pounds per tree. Trees have been known to last for many years on good rich soil, and some on Mr. Moke’s plantation are still bearing which were planted forty years ago; on hill-sides, however, where the soil is light, the plant decays in the course of eight or ten years. The picking season commences in July, and in the low lands generally concludes by the end of August; among the hills, however, where there are frequent showers, and where there is much shade, the season does not close until some time in September.
The four coffee-growing provinces of Brazil, properly speaking, are Rio de Janeiro, San Paulo, Minas, and Bahia. In the two former the agriculturists have for some time past directed their attention almost exclusively to this article. In Bahia its cultivation is steadily, although slowly, increasing. Coffee is grown in the provinces of Maranham, Parana, and St. Catherine’s, but only to a very small extent, the amount produced being insufficient to meet the demand. The cultivation of coffee is rapidly increasing in St. Paulo, and is promoted by the railroad extending from Santos to Jundiahy. The United States usually takes one-half of the crop of Brazil coffee.
The following figures give the average quantity of coffee exported from the empire of Brazil during the undermentioned years, comprising a period previous and subsequent to the abolition of the slave trade in 1851, and showing a steady increase in the export since 1840:
| Annual average. | |
| arrobas. | |
| 1840-43 | 5,507,367 |
| 1843-46 | 6,519,380 |
| 1846-49 | 9,301,967 |
| 1849-52 | 8,542,965 |
| 1852-55 | 10,549,847 |
| 1855-58 | 11,465,719 |
| 1858-61 | 10,501,665 |
The yearly shipments from Rio in the last four years have been as follows:
| bags. | |
| 1859 | 2,064,837 |
| 1860 | 2,150,188 |
| 1861 | 2,085,974 |
| 1862 | 1,477,904 |