Three baskets, or one barrel-measure, of the newly-gathered coffee berry, ought to produce thirty pounds after the process of drying, the removal of the pulp, and the final preparation for the market.  When there is a sufficient number, or a sufficient space of Barbecues or Secadors, sixty or seventy barrels only are put together; but from want of room it often happens that the quantity amounts to a hundred barrels.  In either case, the whole is gathered into two great heaps, and in this state it is allowed to remain for four-and-twenty hours, in order to subject it to a certain degree of fermentation.  After this, it is spread out to dry over the whole surface of the Barbecue, and until it is sufficiently so, it remains there uncovered day and night.  When the dessication is found to be far enough advanced, it is no longer exposed during the night; nor even during the day, if the weather be damp or unfavorable.  The subsequent operations are certainly not better, probably not so well, conducted as in our own West India possessions.

In the fourth year, it is presumed that the agricultural produce of the land, and the first returns of coffee, should be sufficient to meet all the current expenses.  At the end of the fifth year there ought to be forty thousand coffee trees four years old on the estate, 60,000 of three years, and 100,000 of two and one year, the produce of which ought to be at least 400 quintals, which, at a moderate estimate, should be worth 2,400 dollars.  Thus the calculation goes on until we arrive at the end of the seventh year, when the estate ought to be in full bearing.  The returns are estimated at 3,000 arrobas, or 750 quintals, which, at eight dollars per quintal delivered free on board, make 6,000 dollars.  The minor products of the estate, such as Indian corn, pigs, and oil, are given at 1,130 dollars, making the gross returns 7,130 dollars; and, after deducting the annual expenses, leaving 5,300 dollars as the regular return on the capital invested, which, having been about 40,000 dollars, gives about thirteen per cent.; not certainly to be considered extravagant in a country where twelve per cent, is the regular rate of interest.  The produce of coffee from each section is given at 400 arrobas, or 3,500 arrobas for the whole of the nine sections.  The average price of coffee, free of the expense of carriage, is assumed to be two dollars the arroba, or eight dollars per quintal, which would give a return of 7,200 dollars, besides the repayment of the rent by the colonists.

The cultivation of coffee has been falling off in Cuba for several years past, the crops it is asserted being too precarious there, and the prices too low to encourage the continuance of planting.  On the northern side of the island is where this decrease is most perceptible, several of the largest estates having been converted to the growth of sugar and tobacco, others abandoned to serve as pasture fields, and the