Situated between the equator and the twelfth parallel of north latitude, in the world's coffee belt, this country has an area equal to that of all the United States east of the Mississippi river and north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers, or greater than that of France, Germany, and the Netherlands combined—599,533 square miles.
The chain of the Maritime Andes, reaching eastward across Colombia and Venezuela, approaches the Caribbean coast in the latter country. Along the slopes and foot-hills of these mountains are produced some of the finest grades of South American coffee. Here the best coffee grows in the tierra templada and in the lower part of the tierra fria, and is known as the café de tierra fria, or coffee of the cold, or high, land. In these regions the equable climate, the constant and adequate moisture, the rich and well-drained soil, and the protecting forest shade afford the conditions under which the plant grows and thrives best. On the fertile lowland valleys nearer the coast grows the café de tierra caliente, or coffee of the hot land.
On the Altamira Hacienda, Venezuela
The long pipe crossing the center of the picture is a water sluiceway bringing coffee down from the hills
Coffee growing has become the main agricultural pursuit of the country. In 1839 it was estimated that there were 8,900 acres of land planted in coffee, and in 1888 there were 168,000,000 coffee trees in the country on 346,000 acres of land. In the opening years of the twentieth century not far from 250,000 acres were devoted to this cultivation, comprised in upward of 33,000 plantations. The average yield per acre is about 250 pounds. The trees are usually planted from two to two and a quarter meters apart, and this gives about 800 trees to the acre. The triangle system is unknown.
Carmen Hacienda, Fronting on the Escalante River, Venezuela
In this country, the coffee tree bears its first crop when four or five years old. The trees are not subject to unusual hazards from the attacks of injurious insects and animals or from serious parasitic diseases. Nature is kind to them, and their only serious contention for existence arises from the luxuriant tropical vegetation by which they are surrounded. On the whole their cultivation is comparatively easy. On the best managed estates there are not more than 1,000 trees to a fanegada—about one and three-quarters acres of land—and it is calculated that an average annual yield for such a fanegada should be about twenty quintals, a little more than 2,032 pounds of merchantable coffee. It is to be noted, however, that the average yield per tree throughout Venezuela is low—not more than four ounces.