This shrub rises to the height of from four to eight feet, the stem covered with whitish tubercles, which appear to be formed of two curved lines set face to face. The leaves are oblong, and acute at each end, from an inch and a half to two inches in length. The leaves are the only parts used, for which purpose they are collected and dried. The shrub is found wild in Peru, according to Pöppig, in the environs of Cuchero, and on the stony summit of the Cerro de San Christobal. It is cultivated extensively in the mild, but very moist climate of the Andes of Peru, at from 2,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea level; in colder situations it is apt to be killed, and in warmer to lose the flavour of the leaf. The coca plant is propagated from seed sown in nursery beds and carefully watered. When about sixteen or eighteen inches high they are transplanted into plantations called _cocals_, in terraces upon the sides of the mountains. At the end of a year and a half the plant affords its first crop, and from this period to the age of forty years or more it continues to yield a supply. Instances have been noticed of coca plantations that have existed for near a century; but the greatest abundance of leaves is obtained from plants between the third and sixth years. There are four gatherings in the season; the first takes place at the period of flowering, and consists of the lower leaves only. These are larger and less finely flavoured than those afterwards collected, and are mostly consumed at once. The next and most abundant harvest takes place in March; the third and most scanty, in June or July, and the last in November. The leaves are collected similarly to those of tea. Women and children are employed for this purpose. The gatherer squats down, and holding the branch with one hand, plucks from it the leaves, one by one, with the other. These are deposited in a cloth, from which they are afterwards collected into sacks to be conveyed from the plantation. The sacks of leaves are carried to the _haciendas_, where they are spread upon a floor of black slate to dry in the sun. They are then packed up in bales made of banana leaf, closely pressed together, each bale containing on an average twenty-four pounds. The price realised to the cultivator is one shilling per pound.