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page 218 ---coffee plantation---horticulture---

Lake Camorim, Gavea rock on right, and the Atlantic ocean

This lake produces such abundance of fish, that the inhabitants of this district do not even think of obtaining the necessary subsistence by cultivating the fertile forests that surround them: they scarcely plant sufficient corn, but a considerable quantity of Spanish potatoes, water-melons, and sugar-cane, the last of which they do not press, but merely suck out the juice. Considering this poor way of living, in a moist area where the air is not purified by a frequent change of wind, but is loaded with noxious exhalations, it is not surprising that the inhabitants are pale, weak and sickly.

As we endeavoured, on our return from this remarkable valley, to reach the plain of S. Cristovão, we came to the other side of the mountain, to the coffee plantation of Dr. Lesesne, who has hired a large extent of land and planted it with sixty thousand trees.

A coffee plantation

According to the direction of this experienced planter, the fresh berries are planted, in preference, in the shade of other coffee trees, and the plants are taken up with the mould round them, as soon as they have attained the height of ten or twelve inches. It is said to have been observed that detaching the mould from the tender roots, checks the growth for a whole year; for trees treated in this manner, do not produce any fruit for the first thirty-two months, whereas others bear fruit in twenty months. The young trees are planted in the form of a square. Many planters place the trees six feet distant from each other, but others only four, alleging as a reason that some of the trees in the ranks always die.

page 219 ---coffee production---

The most luxuriant shoots in the middle of the trees are pruned away, and they are not suffered to grow more than twelve feet high, that the fruit may be more within reach, and the branches rather spread in breadth. When the trees are four or five years old, the produce is sufficiently considerable, and one negro is then appointed to take care of every thousand trees. While the trees are young and bear little or nothing, one negro is sufficient to keep two thousand trees in order, and to pull up the weeds. There are three gatherings, which occupy almost the whole year; at Rio de Janeiro, the first begins in the month of April.

Only the entirely ripe red berries are taken, which easily part from the stalk, and the seeds are separated without difficulty from the shell. These berries are not thrown upon a heap and left to corrupt, as used generally to be done, but the whole fruit, when it is intended to proceed with particular care, is dried with the outside coat, and, besides, a kind of oil-mill is employed to take off the coat, and the naked seeds are exposed to the sun a whole month, that they may become perfectly dry. For this purpose they make floors, from about twenty-five to thirty feet square of bricks or of stamped clay, which are made convex for the rain to run off; the berries being protected against sudden showers, by portable straw roofs: about thirty arrobas* may be spread on each floor. The number of negroes, each of whom can daily gather one arroba, determines therefore the number of floors required. The coffee when quite dry is kept in baskets, in a dry place, and exposed to the wind. The Brazilian planters, especially those in Rio, have the advantage over those in the Antilles, that the greater part of the berries become ripe in the dry season, which is the most favourable for gathering them.