and by the setting of the blossoms the planter can determine what germs will become fruit.  The trees will blossom in low situations as early as March, but the April bloom is considered the most abundant.  In higher elevations, the trees will bloom even so late as August or September.  In warm climates the fruit advances as rapidly, and in a month will have attained the size of a pea; in more elevated and colder localities, it will take two months to arrive at this stage.  The fruit will be ripe in from six to eight months after the blossom has set; it ripens in warm districts about the month of August, while in others the crop will not be mature till February.  An acre will usually contain 1,200 trees in Jamaica, and the produce would be about 400 lbs. of coffee an acre, or six ounces as the produce of each tree annually.  In some instances, but very seldom, one pound a tree may be obtained.  A bushel of cherry coffee will produce about ten or twelve pounds of merchantable coffee.

The coffee berry, after being pulped and soaked for a day and night to free it from the mucilage, is spread out on barbacues to dry; in ten or twelve days, if the weather has been good, it will be sufficiently cured for the peeling mill.

Mr. W.H.  Marah, of Jamaica, in a Prize Essay on the Cultivation and Manufacture of Coffee in that Island, published in my “Colonial Magazine,” makes some useful remarks:—­

The manufacture of this staple commodity, with a view to its improvement in quality, is a subject which demands our serious attention; and when we observe the vast importance and pecuniary advantage which accrue upon the slightest shade of improvement either in colour or appearance, it becomes the more imperative on us to use all those means which are available, in order to place ourselves on a footing with the foreign grower.  It is true that we are unable to enter the contest with the East Indian or slave cultivator, from the abundance and cheapness of labour which is placed at their command; but by means of our skill and assiduity, we can successfully compete with them by the manufacture of superior produce.

To this portion of plantation management I have given an attentive inquiry, and shall shortly proceed to state my views on the system best adapted to the curing and preparing for market of good quality produce.

The fruit should be gathered in when in a blood-ripe state, to all appearance like cherries.  The labourers are principally accustomed to reap the crop in baskets, of which they carry two to the field; and when the coffee is bearing heavily, and is at its full stage of ripeness, the good pickers will gather in four bushels per diem, and carry the same on their heads to the works.

The fruit is then measured and thrown into a loft above the pulper in a heap.  It should be submitted to the first process of machinery, the pulper, within twenty-four hours after, if