SOMETHING ABOUT COFFEE GROWING
“I feel like a new boy,” remarked Mark, on the morning following the
arrival at Enrique Morano’s plantation. “I slept like a top last night.”
“So did I,” answered Frank. “That bed just suited me. Wonder if anybody
is stirring yet?”
“They must be. I just heard Bulo singing. What a sweet voice that
darkey has.”
The boys were soon dressed and out in the courtyard, where the
professor and the others presently joined them.
“We will have a regular American breakfast,” said Enrique Morano.
“Usually my countrymen have nothing but a cup of coffee and a roll on
rising, but I dropped that habit when I stopped in the United States.”
“I noticed the coffee and rolls at the hotel,” said Darry. “They are
not very substantial.”
Breakfast was soon served, of cantelopes, tapioca, fish, rice cakes,
rolls, and coffee and to it all did full justice. The cantelopes were
particularly fine and fairly melted in the boys’ mouths.
“I must go to the University in an hour,” said Señor Morano. “But I
have arranged for Greva, my head steward, to take you all over the
place and explain whatever you desire to know. Greva speaks very good
English. I will be with you again at four this afternoon, and then, if
you wish, I will take you off on a horseback ride into the country.”
“We were thinking of getting back to Caracas this afternoon,” said
Professor Strong.
“No, no, you must not think of it, my dear Strong!” cried the civil
engineer. “I will not listen. You must remain to-night at least. I have
so much I wish to talk about to you.”
“Oh, let us stay!” whispered Darry. “I’m just aching for a good
horseback ride.”
“Yes, let us stay!” chimed in the others, and the professor could not
resist the appeal.
“But what of Hockley?” he said. “He will be wondering what became of
us.”
“Send him a letter to come out,” suggested Mark. And this was done, the
letter being carried to the city by Enrique Morano himself.
Immediately after Enrique Morano had departed, the steward, Juan
Greva, who had been already introduced, came forward, and conducted
them from the house to the nursery attached to the place.
“This is where we first grow our coffee plants,” he said, in a strong
Spanish accent. “We sow the seeds in the ground and let the plant come
up until it is about a foot high before we transplant it to the field.”
“And how long does it take for them to grow as high as that?” asked Sam.
“About a year and a half. Then they are set out in the field, which is
first ploughed thoroughly and planted with banana trees to shade the
plants. Later on we plant bucuara trees instead of the bananas, as they
are more hardy. If the coffee plants were not shaded like that they
might dry up.”
“Do they bear at once?” questioned Darry.
“Oh, no, far from it. They sometimes bear a little the fourth or fifth
year, but give nothing like a regular crop until the seventh or eighth
year.”
“Gracious, what a time to wait!” murmured Frank.
“That is true, Newton,” said the professor. “But after a plantation is
once started it will last fifty years or more.”
“One plantation here has lasted seventy-five years,” said Juan Greva.
“It yields 1,200 quintals of coffee a season, and the plantation is
worth $60,000 of United States money.”
“How much is a quintal?” came from Frank.
“One hundred and twenty-five pounds,” answered the professor. “1,200
quintals would be how much, Newton?”
“150,000 pounds, sir,” answered Frank, after a short mental calculation.
“Correct. Now, Robertson, at $15 per hundred pounds, what is such a
crop worth?”
“The crop is worth $22,500,” answered Mark, after another pause.
“Gracious, there must be money in raising coffee!” exclaimed Sam.
“Do they get fifteen cents a pound for this?” questioned Darry.
“The market price at present is about sixteen cents,” answered Juan
Greva. “It runs from ten cents to twenty-two cents.”
“You must remember, boys, that what is received for the coffee is not
pure gain. The plants have to be cared for constantly and there is much
to do before the bean is ready for the market. All such labor has to
be paid for.”
From the nursery they walked to the coffee grove itself, a long and
broad field, laid out into squares, with ditches of water flowing
between. The plants were set out in rows, with many banana and bucuara
trees between.
“The coffee plants blossom in September,” said the steward, as they
walked through the field. “The blossoms are something like orange
blossoms, which your ladies love to use at weddings. Then comes the
berry, which is something like a red cherry and is picked in April and
May. The picking is a great time and men, women and children take part,
each with a basket on his or her back. A good picker can pick berries
enough in one day to make forty to fifty pounds of coffee.”
Going into one of the storehouses, the steward brought out some of the
half-dried berries and broke them open. Inside rested the seed, two
coffee beans with the flat sides together and covered with a sticky
pulp.
“Don’t look much like the beans we get,” said Frank.
“These beans have to be dried and the pulp must be taken off,” said the
professor.
“How do they get the pulp off?” asked Mark.
“The berry is first crushed and then the mass is put through a machine
which separates the pulp from the seeds. Then the seeds, or beans, are
washed twice and dried, and come out as white as anyone would wish.”
“But our coffee isn’t white,” said Frank. “It’s green--that is, before
it is roasted.”
“The whiteness is all on the skin of the bean, which must be taken off
before the coffee is ready for market. Did you notice that large stone
flooring on the other side of this field? That is the drying floor.”
The professor turned to the steward. “How long do you dry your coffee
here?”
“From six weeks to two months,” answered Juan Greva. “The weather makes
the time short or long. Each day the coffee is spread out with rakes
and at night it is gathered in heaps and covered with heavy cloth.”
“What a lot of work for a cup of coffee!” murmured Mark.
“The work does not stop there,” said the steward with a smile. “When
the coffee is dry it goes into a machine which takes off the shell and
then into another machine which blows it perfectly clean. After that it
goes to the sorting room, where the girls separate the good beans from
the bad and grade the good into five grades.”
“And then what?” came from Sam.
“Then the coffee is placed in bags and sewed up--that is, the coffee
which goes to the United States and England. When you get it, it is
roasted and ground.”
“And then we take it and boil it, and strain it, and put milk and sugar
to it, and drink it down, and that’s the end of it,” broke in Darry.
“What a lot to do just for one cup of coffee! I never dreamed of such
work before.”
“There is something else that is done with coffee, though not here,”
said Professor Strong. “In Brazil they often paint coffee black for the
South African market, and in other places coffee is polished so that it
shines like silver. Every country has its peculiar taste and the dealer
must do his best to suit that taste or lose the trade.”
After walking through the coffee grove, they turned back to the
warehouses, and Juan Greva explained the various tools at hand for
caring for the plants. “The coffee bush is a hardy one, but must be
carefully watched if we wish to get the best results,” he said. “It
must have enough water but not too much, and we must be careful of
grubs and worms.”
It was now growing warm, and the whole party was glad enough to retire
to the shelter of a palm grove behind the warehouses. On two sides of
the grove were long rows of fruit trees with bushes of various kinds of
berries growing between. They sat down and a servant presently appeared
with a pitcher of iced lemonade and a platter of little cakes covered
with honey.
“This looks like a land of plenty,” said Mark, leaning back on a bench
and taking a deep breath. “How fresh and green everything is! It seems
to me a man ought to be able to make a living without half trying.”
“The trouble down here has been the constant revolutions,” answered the
professor. “Nothing has been safe, and nobody felt like settling down
to steady work. But that will pass away in time, and then South America
will take a leap forward that will astonish those living in the North.”