, and
making them fall on mats placed for them. By this way the Arabians
harvest only the beans perfectly ripe at the time, and which must give
the coffee a more delicate flavor. A tree will yield each time on an
average from 1 lb. to 11/2 lb. of coffee, when pulped and perfectly
dried. An acre of land planted with coffee, when favored by the
weather, becomes more profitable than when it is planted with sugar
canes; but its crops are always very precarious, as the blossoms, and
even the berries, are sometimes damaged by the heavy rains, which are
much less injurious to sugar canes; wherefore a planter feels himself
best secured in his revenue, as soon as he can cultivate them both.

Nothing can exceed the beauty of the walks planted with coffee trees,
from their pyramidical shape and from their glossy dark green leaves,
shining with great brightness, amongst which are hanging the
scarlet-coloured berries. Mr. Baird, in his "Impressions of the West
Indies," thus speaks of a coffee plantation:--

"Anything in the way of cultivation more beautiful, or more
fragrant, than a coffee plantation, I had not conceived; and oft did
I say to myself, that if ever I became, from health and otherwise, a
cultivator of the soil within the tropics, I would cultivate the
coffee plant, even though I did so irrespective altogether of the
profit that might be derived from so doing. Much has been written,
and not without justice, of the rich fragrance of an orange grove;
and at home we ofttimes hear of the sweet odors of a bean-field. I
have, too, often enjoyed in the Carse of Stirling, and elsewhere in
Scotland, the balmy breezes as they swept over the latter,
particularly when the sun had burst out, with unusual strength,
after a shower of rain. I have likewise, in Martinique, Santa Cruz,
Jamaica, and Cuba, inhaled the gales wafted from the orangeries; but
not for a moment would I compare either with the exquisite aromatic
odors from a coffee plantation in full blow, when the
hill-side--covered over with regular rows of the tree-like shrub,
with their millions of jessamine-like flowers--showers down upon
you, as you ride up between the plants, a perfume of the most
delicately delicious description. 'Tis worth going to the West
Indies to see the sight and inhale the perfume."

The decline in the quantities of coffee drawn from the "West Indies to
supply the gr