The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Science
The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.
Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Botany, Economic
_Jamaica_.--The coffee plant was first introduced into Jamaica by Sir
Nicholas Lawes, in 1728, when it was cultivated on an estate called
Temple Hall, in Liguanea, not far from Kingston. In 1752 there were
exported 60,000 lbs.; and in 1775, 44,000 lbs. Until 1788 little
attention was paid to this product. In the four years ending 30th
September, 1794, the average exportation of coffee was 1,603,000 lbs.;
in 1804 it amounted to 22,000,000 lbs.; and during the three years
ending 30th September, 1807, the average annual exportation was more
than 28,500,000 lbs.; which, at £6 per cwt., its cost in Jamaica,
produced more than £1,700,000. It is calculated that £20,000,000 was
invested in coffee estates. The coffee plant thrives in almost every
soil about the mountains of Jamaica, and in the very driest spots has
frequently produced abundant crops. In 1844 there were 671 coffee
plantations in the island. Coffee is grown in the vicinity of the Blue
Mountain Peak at a height of 4,700 feet above the level of the sea,
and some of the finest and most productive plantations are in this
locality. The branches of a coffee tree, on Radnor estate, covered, in
1851, a space of thirteen feet in diameter, and the tree was about
thirteen years old.
In 1789 Hayti exported 77,000,000 lbs. of coffee, but in 1826 it had
declined to 32,000,000 lbs., in 1837 it was 31,000,000 lbs., and the
shipments of this staple are now very inconsiderable.
In the West Indies, I speak principally of Jamaica, where my
experience extended, the soil best adapted for the cultivation of
coffee is found to be loose gravelly or stony. A rich black mould will
produce a luxuriant bush, which will yield little fruit. Decomposing
sandstone, and slate, known in Jamaica as rotten rock, mixed with
vegetable mould, is one of the most favorable soils. The subsoil
should be also carefully examined by a boring augur, for a stiff moist
clay, or marly bottom retentive of moisture, is particularly injurious
to the plant. A dark, rusty-colored sand, or a ferruginous marl on a
substratum of limestone, kills the tree in a few years. In virgin
lands, after the wood has been felled and cleared, the land is lined
off into rows of from six to seven feet square, and at each square a
hole is made about eighteen inches deep, into which the young plant is
placed and the earth plied gently about it, leaving from six to eight
inches of the plant above ground.
Nurseries for raising plants from seeds were formerly made, but for
many years this has been neglected, and plantations are set out now
from suckers which are drawn and trimmed of their roots, and cut about
two feet long.
The young plants require to be kept well clear from weeds, and four
cleanings in the year may be deemed necessary, the plants which have
failed must be supplied in order to ensure uniformity of appearance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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