As the demand for coffee continually increased, the small province of Yemen, the only country which at that time supplied the market, could no longer produce a sufficient quantity, and the high price of the article naturally prompted the European governments to introduce the cultivation of so valuable a plant into their colonies. The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon took the lead in 1718, and Batavia followed in 1723. Some years before, a few plants had been sent to Amsterdam, one of which found its way to Marly, where it was multiplied by seeds. Captain Descleux, a French naval officer, took some of these young coffee-plants with him to Martinique, desirous of adding a new source of wealth to the resources of the colony. The passage was very tedious and stormy; water began to fail, and all the gods seemed to conspire against the introduction of the coffee-tree into the New World. But Descleux patiently endured the extremity of thirst that his tender shoots might not droop for want of water, and succeeded in safely bringing over one single plant, the parent stock whence all the vast coffee-plantations of America are said to have derived their origin. On examining the present state of coffee-production throughout the world, we find that the European markets obtain their chief supplies from Brazil, Java, Ceylon, and the West Indies; but with regard to quality, Mocha coffee, though comparatively insignificant in point of quantity, is still prominent in flavour and aroma. When left to the free growth of nature, the coffee-tree attains a height of from fifteen to twenty feet; in the plantations, however, the tops are generally cut off in order to promote the growth of the lower branches, and to facilitate the gathering of the crop. Its leaves are opposite, evergreen, and not unlike those of the bay-tree; its blossoms are white, sitting on short foot-stalks, and resembling the flower of the jasmine. The fruit which succeeds is a green berry, ripening into red, of the size and form of a large cherry, and having a pale, insipid, and somewhat glutinous pulp, enclosing two hard and oval seeds or beans, which are too well known to require any further description. The seeds are known to be ripe when the berries assume a dark red colour, and if not then gathered, will drop from the trees. To be cultivated to advantage, the coffee-tree requires a climate where the mean temperature of the year amounts to 68°, and where the thermometer never falls below 55°. It is by nature a forest tree requiring shade and moisture, and thus it is necessary to screen it from the scorching rays of the sun by planting rows of umbrageous trees at certain intervals throughout the field. These also serve to protect it from the sharp winds which would injure the blossoms. It cannot bear either excessive heat or a long-continued drought, and where rain does not fall in sufficient quantity, artificial irrigation must supply it with the necessary moisture.