"Like the vine, coffee requires a large number of labourers in proportion to the area under cultivation; it supports a relatively dense population. The two thousand trees which one colonist will receive will not cover, as a matter of fact, more than five to seven acres; yet the coffee supports other labourers who work on the _fazenda_, in addition to the labourers proper, or colonists. Pruning, for instance, which so far is not universally practised, is never done by the colonists, but by gangs of practised workmen, who travel about the State and hire themselves for the task. The colonist is only a labourer; if he were allowed to prune the shrubs he would kill them. Heaven knows, the pruners to whom the task is confided ill-treat the trees sufficiently already! They use pruning-hook and axe with a brutality that makes one shudder. "When the coffee ripens, towards the end of June, the picking of the crop commences. Sometimes, in a good year, the crop is not all picked until November. The great advantage enjoyed by San Paolo, to which it owes its rank as a coffee-producing country, is that the whole crop arrives at maturity almost at the same moment. The crop may thus be harvested in its entirety at one picking; the harvester may pick all the berries upon each tree at once, instead of selecting the ripe berries, and making two or three harvests, as is necessary in Costa Rica or Guatemala. This entails a great reduction in the cost of production and of labour. San Paolo owes this advantage to the climate, which is not quite tropical, and to the sequence of well-defined seasons and their effect upon the vegetation. "At the time of picking the colonists are gathered into gangs. They confine themselves to loading the berries on carts, which other labourers drive to the _fazenda_; there the coffee is soaked, husked, dried and selected, and then dispatched to Santos, the great export market. All these operations the colonists perform under the supervision of the manager of the _fazenda_. A bell announces the hour for going to work; another the hour of rest; another the end of the day; the labourers have no illusions of independence. In the morning the gangs scatter through the plantation; in the evening they gradually collect on the paths of the _fazenda_, and go home in family groups, tired after the day's work, saving of words, saluting one another by gestures. On Sunday work is interrupted; games are arranged; parties are made up to play _mora_, or Italian card games, with _denari_ and _bastoni_. Women hold interminable palavers. Sometimes, on an indifferent nag, borrowed at second or third hand from a neighbour, the colonist will ride as far as the nearest town, to see his relations, exercise his tongue, and pit himself against such hazards of fortune as the world outside the _fazenda_ may offer.