Picking Blue Mountain Berries, Jamaica
Dominican Republic. Coffee was once the leading staple in the Dominican Republic as in the adjoining Haitian Republic; but in recent years cacao, sugar, and tobacco have become the predominating crops. Said to have the world's richest and most productive soil, one-half of the republic's area is particularly suited to the cultivation of a good grade of coffee of the highland type. But political and industrial conditions have made for neglect of its cultivation by efficient methods. Lack of suitable roads has also militated against the development of the coffee industry.
In spite of many drawbacks, it is to be noted that, from the beginning of the twentieth century, the coffee-growing area has been gradually expanded until exports increased from less than 1,000,000 pounds to 5,029,316 pounds in 1918, although in the next two years there was a recession in the total exports to 1,358,825 pounds in 1920.
The principal plantations are in the vicinity of the town of Moca and in the districts of Santiago, Bani, and Barahona. Generally speaking, the methods of cultivation in the Dominican Republic are somewhat crude as compared with the practise in the larger countries of production in Central America and South America.
Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe has an area of 619 square miles, and about one-third of this area is under cultivation. About 15,000 acres are in coffee, giving employment to upward of 10,000 persons. The average yield of a plantation of mature trees is about 535 pounds to the acre.
In the early years of the industry in Guadeloupe, production and export were considerable. From old records it appears that in 1784 the exports amounted to 7,500,000 pounds. During the closing years of the eighteenth century the annual exports were from 6,500,000 to 8,500,000 pounds, and in the beginning of the next century they registered about 6,000,000 pounds. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century the growing of sugar cane overtopped that of coffee in profit, and many planters abandoned coffee. After 1884, with the decadence of the sugar industry, coffee was again favored, the government giving substantial encouragement by paying bounties ranging from $15 to $19 per acre for all new coffee plantations.
In recent years, considerable liberica and robusta have been planted in place of the exhausted arabica.