The coffee-trees are universally planted, but the fruit produced here is not excellent in quality, which is probably owing entirely to the want of skill in the management of them. The plants are disposed too close to each other, and are so much overshaded by other trees that the sun cannot penetrate to the fruit; owing to which the juices are not well ripened, and the berries, which become large, do not acquire a proper flavour. Add to this that the berries are gathered whilst red, which is before they have arrived at a due degree of maturity, and which the Arabs always permit them to attain to, esteeming it essential to the goodness of the coffee. As the tree is of the same species with that cultivated in Arabia there is little doubt but with proper care this article might be produced of a quality equal, perhaps superior, to that imported from the West Indies; though probably the heavy rains on Sumatra may prevent its attaining to the perfection of the coffee of Mocha.* (*Footnote. For these observations on the growth of the coffee, as well as many others on the vegetable productions of the island, I am indebted to the letters of Mr. Charles Miller, entered on the Company's records at Bencoolen, and have to return him my thanks for many communications since his return to England. On the subject of this article of produce I have since received the following interesting information from the late Mr. Charles Campbell in a letter dated November 1803. "The coffee you recollect on this coast I found so degenerated from want of culture and care as not to be worth the rearing. But this objection has been removed, for more than three years ago I procured twenty-five plants from Mocha; they produced fruit in about twenty months, are now in their second crop, and loaded beyond any fruit-trees I ever saw. The average produce is about eight pounds a tree; but so much cannot be expected in extensive plantations, nor in every soil. The berries are in no respect inferior in flavour to those of the parent country." This cultivation, I am happy to hear, has since been carried to a great extent.) (PLATE 2. THE DAMMAR, A SPECIES OF PINUS. Sinensis delt. Swaine Sc. Published by W. Marsden, 1810.) DAMMAR.