the Coffea Tree, is a plant which has been botanically described in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where some account is likewise given of the modes of cultivating it, as well as of the qualities of its fruit. Since that account, however, was published, two works have fallen into our hands, from which we deem it our duty to make such extracts as may not only correct some mistakes which we had committed, but also communicate useful information to the public.

In our former article we adopted the common opinion, that the coffee produced in Arabia is so greatly superior to that which is raised everywhere else, that it is vain to think of cultivating the plant to any extent in the West India islands. We are happy to find that this is a vulgar error. In the year 1783, when the cultivation of coffee was not so well understood in Jamaica as at present, some samples from that island were produced in London, and pronounced by the dealers to be equal to the very best brought from the East. "Two of the samples were equal to the best Mocha coffee, and two more of them superior to any coffee to be had at the grocers shops in London, unless you will pay the price of picked coffee for it, which is two shillings per pound more than for that which they call the best coffee. All the rest of the samples were far from bad coffee, and very little inferior, if at all, to what the grocers call best coffee."

If this be so, it surely becomes the legislature of Great Britain to encourage the cultivation of coffee in the West Indies, especially as it thrives best in soil which is not fit for the sugar-cane, and may be raised in considerable quantities by those who are not able to stock a sugar plantation. The encouraging every article which increases the intercourse with our colonies is increasing our commerce. The payment for all the staples of the West Indies is made in our manufactures; the sale of which must increase in proportion to the numbers that are employed in the cultivation of what is bartered for them. Our West India islands, without draining us of specie or bullion, can supply us with many of those very articles for which we are drained in other parts of the world, and particularly with coffee.

To give a detailed account of the introduction of the coffee-tree into the West Indies, would swell this article to very little purpose. According to Boerhaave, a Dutch governor was the first person who procured fresh berries from Mocha, and planted them in Batavia; and in the year 1690 sent a plant from thence to Amsterdam, which came to maturity, and produced those berries which have since furnished all that is now cultivated in the West Indies.

In 1714 a plant from the garden of Amsterdam was sent by Mr Pancras, a burgomaster, and director of the botanical garden, as a present to Louis XIV., which was placed in the garden at Marly. In 1718 the Dutch began to cultivate coffee in Surinam; in 1721 the French began to cultivate it at Cayenne; in 1727 at Martinico; and in 1728 the English began to cultivate it in Jamaica.

As it has been more cultivated in the French West India islands than in the British, it may be of importance to our colonists to be made acquainted with the practice of the French planters. Accordingly Dr Labore, a royalist of St Domingo, has lately published a volume for their instruction on this subject; in which are many judicious observations, the result of long experience, respecting the soil fit for a coffee plantation; the various establishments necessary; the cultivation of the coffee-tree through the several stages of its growth and duration; and the management and use of the negroes and cattle.

With respect to soil, it is a fact, says he, beyond contradiction, that low lands, and even the mountains near the champaign country, are less proper for the production of coffee, than lands which are high and at a distance from the sea. The coffee-tree delights in a comparatively cool climate, and in an open and permeable virgin soil; and is hurt by the parching destructive air of the sea. The soil on the mountains of St Domingo consists generally of a bed of mould more or less deep; but which, for the production of coffee-trees, ought not to be less than four or five feet. If the declivity be gentle, the softest and most friable earth is preferable to all others; but in steep grounds a firm though not clayey soil, mixed with a proportion of gravel or small stones, through which the water may find an easy way, is the most desirable. The colour of the ground is of little consequence, though such as is somewhat reddish is generally to be preferred. With regard to exposure, the north and west are the most eligible in low and hot situations, because these exposures are the coolest; and on the highest mountains the south and east are to be chosen, because they are the hottest. On the whole, neither the highest nor the lowest situations are the best, but those which are considerably above the middle of the mountains.

Whatever be the planter's circumstances in point of fortune, and our author thinks that he ought not to undertake a settlement without the command of 3000 or 4000 pounds sterling, he ought not to set out with a great number of negroes. If he cannot command a plentiful supply of victuals from some contiguous plantation, six, or at the most twelve, male negroes, with one or two women, will be found sufficient to make the first essay. After building two huts, one for the master or overseer and the other for the slaves, they are to commence their operations by cutting away the underwood and creeping plants with the bill, and felling the trees. The trees are to be cut as low as possible, but the roots are to be left in the ground, because they preserve the soil during the first period of culture; and in burning this mass of wood and shrubs, the only way sometimes of clearing the ground, care must be taken that the fire be nowhere so violent as to convert the soil into the consistency of brick, which it is very apt to do if the soil be clayey. Amid the coffee-trees, after they are planted, may be sown beans, maize, and all kinds of succulent plants, pot herbs, and roots; but particular care must be taken to remove from these plantations all creeping plants, such as melons, yams, potatoes, gourds, and more especially tobacco, which multiplies to a vast extent, and exhausts the ground.

In St Domingo the most approved method of planting the coffee-tree is in straight rows crossing each other at right angles, and the distance between the plants is regulated by the quality and exposure of the ground. The richer the soil, the exposures being the same, and the cooler the exposure, the quality of the soil being the same, the farther must the trees be planted asunder. If on the north and west the ground be good, plant still farther; but, on the contrary, if to the east or south it be light (which it generally is), plant still nearer. Thus if it be proper on a south or east exposure to plant at the distance of six feet, it will be necessary to plant at the distance of seven on a west or north exposure, if the ground be of the same quality as in the other situations.

Though coffee, like all other vegetables, grows from the seed, Dr Laborie advises, in the forming of large plantations, to make use of saplings reared in nurseries; and the situation fittest for a nursery is a plain, or at least a ground of gentle ascent, where the mould is crumbly. In forming a nursery, some plant the whole cherry; but our author recommends the taking off the skin, and washing the separated seeds; in which we suspect that he is mistaken, as his practice is certainly a deviation from nature. The nursery must be kept very clear of weeds, and neither corn nor any thing else grown in it.

The best season for transplanting the saplings is during the genial rains of April and May, when great attention is required, as the treasures of future harvests are at stake. Those plants are the fittest for being removed which, in the language of our author, are crowned, or have each four little boughs; and, if the seeds were fresh and sown in furrows about an inch from each other, this perfection is generally attained in the course of a year. The saplings must not be pulled up by force, but carefully raised by means of a flat, sharp, iron shovel, thrust deep under their roots; and the sooner they are planted, after being taken up, the better.

In planting, the first thing to be done is to thrust into the ground a dibble, or sharp pointed stick, round which a hole is dug from nine to twelve inches in diameter, and from fifteen to eighteen in depth. Then a quantity of the mould taken out of the hole is thrown back into it, till its depth be diminished about four or six inches; and the plant being supported with the left hand, in the middle of the hole, while the end of its straight root, which our author calls its pivot, touches lightly the new bed, the surrounding mould is with the right hand thrown in, to the height of six inches. This being lightly pressed down with both hands, more earth is thrown in and pressed in the same manner, care being taken not to hurt, or bend, or displace the sapling, which must be set so deep that its two inferior branches be rather below the level of the ground. On this account, three or four inches of the hole are left open, which, by the time that these branches rise above its margin, are filled up by the surrounding earth. The business is finished by sinking the sharp-pointed stick at the upper margin of the hole, where it serves as a small fence to the infant tree. In hot situations plantain trees are intermingled with the coffee trees for the purpose of shade and coolness. They are usually placed in every fourth or fifth row, as the trees are more or less distant, and the exposure more or less hot.

To the business of planting very soon succeeds that of weeding; for there is hardly any plant to which weeds are so pernicious as the coffee tree; they cause it to grow yellow, fade, wither, and perish. Where the ground slopes much, especially if the soil be soft and friable, the weeds must be taken up by the hand; for if they be rooted out by the hoe, the soil will be too loosened that the rains will sweep it away. Some weeds, however, from the depth of their roots must be dug up; and when that is the case the earth must be carefully returned and pressed down. If, in weeding, any saplings be found withered, others of the same size must be brought from the nursery and planted in their stead, with what our author calls their clod, i.e., with the earth of the nursery adhering to their roots. If any sapling be found broken or twisted, it must be cut close by the ground in a sloping direction, the cut surface facing the north, and it will soon put forth suckers, of which the best only need be preserved. In plantations of eighteen or twenty-months old trees are often found with yellow, withered leaves, of which the cause is sometimes a premature load of fruit, which must therefore be instantly removed or the tree will perish. If, after this, it begin not in a few days to recover, it is probably eaten at the roots by a large white worm resembling a flug. In that case the tree must be removed, the worm taken out, and before another tree be planted in its stead, a large hole must be made in the ground, exposed to the influence of the sun at least for a fortnight.

The natural height of the coffee tree is from 15 to 18 feet; and if left to itself it would have the form of most other trees, i.e., a naked-trunk and a branchy head. This is prevented by what the planters call flopping; which is performed by cutting off the top of the tree when it has arrived at the proper height, which varies according to circumstances. In the best soil and most genial exposure, it is suffered to grow to the height of five feet, and in the worst flopped at two; but under the same aspect, and on ground of the same quality, all the trees ought to be topped at the same height. This operation of flopping is very apt to make the trees put forth superfluous branches, which renders them inaccessible to the genial warmth of the sun, and, of course, deficient in the powers of fructification. These must be plucked away while yet tender; for if they be suffered to grow till it become necessary to cut them, a number of sprouts succeed; whereas, when they are plucked, the wound soon cicatrizes, and nothing follows.

The saw and the knife, however, must sometimes be used; for when trees grow old their heads are apt to spoil; superfluous branches may have been left upon them through neglect; a bough may have been broken by accident; or branches may be spent by too great a load of fruit. In all these cases recourse must be had to pruning, which should be performed immediately after crop, and in such a manner as that the tree, when it puts forth its new branches, may still have as much as possible its natural or former appearance. This will be accomplished by cutting the withered bough immediately above a knot, whence a good secondary branch is put forth, which may be easily trained into the proper shape. Our author directs the cut to be always made so as that the sloping surface shall face the north; by which exposure it will escape the injury which it would otherwise receive from the excessive heat of the sun. This is a good advice; but it would still be an improvement on it to treat the wound with Forsyth's or Hit's plaster, which we have described elsewhere (See Encycl. Vol. XVIII. page 362). When the tree is completely pruned, the mols and other excrescences must be scraped from the trunk with a wooden knife, great care being taken not to injure the bark.

After pruning follows what is called nipping. This is nothing more than the removal of those superfluous small twigs which are sent forth from every cut surface in such numbers as would soon exhaust the tree; and it is called nipping, because they are plucked away by the hand, and not cut by the knife. It is needless to add, that when the ground begins to be impoverished, it must be enriched by proper manure. This is known to every husbandman both in Europe and in the West Indies; but it is not perhaps so generally known that the weedings, and chiefly the red skins of coffee, when gathered into pits, are, in process of time, converted into a black mould, which our author says makes the very best manure.

"The fruit of the coffee, when perfectly ripe, appears like a small oval cherry. Under a red and shining skin a whitish clammy lucidous pulp presents itself, which generally includes two seeds. These seeds have one side flat, the other hemispherical. The first is marked with a longitudinal fissure, and the flat sides are applied to each other. When the seeds are opened, they are found covered with a white, ligneous, brittle membrane, denominated parchment; on the inside of which is another fliver-coloured membrane, exceedingly thin, and seeming to originate from the fissure of the seeds. Sometimes the cherry has but one seed or grain, which then is in the form of a small egg. This is peculiar to old decayed trees, or to the extremities of some small branches."

The business of preparation consists in taking the seed from its covering, in drying, and in cleaning it so as to have every advantage at market. Our author thinks that the best method of preparing the coffee is to strip the seed of its outer skin immediately on its being pulled, and to dry it in its parchment. The process has been already described in the Encyclopaedia; but we believe it to be an injudicious one. We have the authority of a very eminent botanist *, well acquainted with all the vegetable productions of the West Indies, to say, that the improvement which we have there mentioned, as proposed by Mr Miller, is greatly preferable to Dr Laborie's practice. Indeed he himself admits, that coffee dried in the cherry is more heavy than when dried in parchment, and that it generally has a higher flavour. Nay, he says expressly, that "if a planter wants to have coffee of the first quality, either for himself or for his friends, he must set a part a number of his oldest trees, and not gather the fruit till it is ripened into dryness." It is in that manner, he believes, that the Arabians in Yemen make their little harvests; and he declares, that coffee thus nourished on the tree to the last moment, must have every perfection of which it is capable." His only plausible objection is, that the trees are soon exhausted when the fruit is left too long upon them; but doubtless this exhaustion might be retarded by proper manure.

The chemical analysis of coffee evinces that it possesses a great portion of mildly bitter and lightly astrigent gummosus and resinous extract; a considerable quantity of oil; a fixed salt; and a volatile salt.—These are its medicinal constituent principles. The intention of torrefaction is not only to make it deliver those principles, and make them soluble in water, but to give it a property it does not possess in the natural state of the berry. By the action of fire, its leguminous taste and the aqueous part of its mucilage are destroyed; its fine properties are created and disengaged, and its oil is rendered empyreumatic.—From thence arises the pungent smell, and exhilarating flavour, not found in its natural state.

The roasting of the berry to a proper degree requires great nicety: Du Four justly remarks, that the virtue and agreeableness of the drink depend on it, and that both are often injured in the ordinary method. Bernier says, when he was at Cairo, where it is so much used, he was assured by the best judges, that there were only two people in that great city, in the public way, who understood the preparing it in perfection. If it be under-done, its virtues will not be imparted, and in use it will load and oppress the stomach:—If it be overdone, it will yield a flat, burnt, and bitter taste, its virtues will be destroyed, and in use it will heat the body, and act as an astringent.

Fourteen pounds weight of raw coffee is generally reduced, at the public roasting houses in London, to eleven pounds by the roasting; for which the dealer pays seven pence half-penny, at the rate of five shillings for every hundred weight. In Paris, the same quantity is reduced to ten pounds and an half. But the roasting ought to be regulated by the age and quality of the coffee, and by nicer rules than the appearance of the fumes, and such as are usually practised: therefore the reduction must consequently vary, and no exact standard can be ascertained. Besides, by mixing different sorts of coffee together, that require different degrees of heat and roasting, coffee has seldom all the advantages it is capable of receiving to make it delicate, grateful, and pleasant. This indeed can be effected no way so well as by people who have it roasted in their own houses, to their own taste, and fresh as they want it for use. The closer it is confined at the time of roasting, and till used, the better will its volatile pungency, flavour, and virtues, be preserved.

The mode of preparing this beverage for common use differs in different countries, principally as to the additions made to it.—But though that is generally understood, and that taste, constitution, the quality of the coffee, and the quantity intended to be drunk, must be consulted, in regard to the proportion of coffee to the water in making it—yet there is one material point, the importance of which is not well understood, and which admits of no deviation.

The preservation of the virtues of coffee, particularly when it is of a fine quality, and exempt from rankness, as has been said, depends on carefully confining it after it has been roasted; and not powdering it until the time of using it, that the volatile and atheral principles, generated by the fire, may not escape. But all this will signify nothing, and the best materials will be useless, unless the following important admonition is strictly attended to; which is, that after the liquor is made,—it should be bright and clear, and entirely exempt from the least cloudiness or foul appearance, from a suspension of any of the particles of the substance of the coffee.

There is scarcely any vegetable infusion or decoction whose effects differ from its gross origin more than that of which we are speaking. Coffee taken in substance causes oppresion at the stomack, heat, nausea, and indigestion: consequently a continued use of a preparation of it, in which any quantity of its substance is contained, besides being disagreeable to the palate, must tend to produce the same indispositions. The residuum of the roasted berry, after its virtues are extracted from it, is little more than an earthy calx, and must therefore be injurious.

The want of attention to this circumstance has been the cause of many of the complaints against coffee, and of the aversion which some people have to it; and it is from this consideration that coffee should not be prepared with milk instead of water, nor should the milk be added to it on the fire, as is sometimes the case, for economical dietetic purposes, where only a small quantity of coffee is used, as the tenacity of the milk impedes the precipitation of the grounds, which is necessary for the purity of the liquor, and therefore neither the milk nor the sugar should be added until after it is made with water in the usual way, and the clarification of it is completed (a).—The milk should be hot when added to the liquor of the coffee, which should also be hot, or both should be heated together, in this mode of using coffee as an article of sustenance.

If a knowledge of the principles of coffee, founded on examination and various experiments, added to observations made on the extensive and indiscriminate use of it, cannot authorise us to attribute to it any particular quality unfriendly to the human frame;—if the unerring test of experience has confirmed its utility, in many countries, not exclusively productive of those inconveniences, habits, and diseases, for which its peculiar properties seem most applicable—let these properties be duly considered; and let us reflect on the state of our atmosphere, the food and modes of life of the inhabitants,—and the chronic infirmities which derive their origin from these sources, and it will be evident what salutary effects might be expected from the general dietetic use of coffee in Great Britain.