NDS]

[Illustration: COFFEE DRYING FIELD, BRAZIL]

CHAPTER X

PLANT PRODUCTS OF ECONOMIC USE--BEVERAGES AND MEDICINAL SUBSTANCES

It may be assumed that practically all beverages derived from plants owe
their popularity to the stimulant effects they produce. In coffee, tea,
cocoa, and mate, the stimulant principle is identical with _cafein_, the
active principle of coffee; in liquors it is a powerful narcotic
_alcohol_; non-potable substances, tobacco, opium, etc., owe their
popularity also to narcotic poisons.

=Coffee.=--The coffee "beans" of commerce are the seeds of a tree (_Coffea
arabica_) probably native to Abyssinia, but now cultivated in various
parts of the world. It was introduced into Aden from Africa late in the
fifteenth century, and from there its use spread to other cities. Rather
singularly its popularity resulted from the strong efforts made to
forbid its use.

It was regarded as a stimulant and therefore it was forbidden to
followers of Islam.[34] But its power to prevent drowsiness and sleep
during the intolerably long religious exercises was a winning feature,
and so its use became general in spite of the fulminations against it.

Coffee culture was confined to Arabia until the close of the seventeenth
century; it was then introduced into the Dutch East Indies, and for many
years the island of Java became the main supply of the world. At the
present time, Java is second only to Brazil in coffee production. In the
Old World it is now also cultivated along the Guinea coast of Africa, in
Madagascar, India, and Ceylon. In the New World the chief areas are
Brazil, Venezuela, the Central American States, and the West Indies.

[Illustration: COFFEE PRODUCING REGIONS]

The coffee-tree may be cultivated in almost any soil that is fertile; it
thrives best, however, in red soil. Old, decomposed red lavas produce
the choicest beans. Coffee grows in any moist climate in which the
temperature does not range higher than 80 deg. F. nor lower than 55 deg.
F. An occasional frost injures but does not necessarily kill the trees,
which grow better in the shade than in the sunlight. For convenience in
gathering the crop, the trees are pruned until they are not higher than
bushes.

The fruit of the coffee-tree is a deep-red berry not quite so large as a
cherry. A juicy pulp encloses a double membrane, or endocarp, and within
the latter are the seeds which constitute the coffee of commerce.
Normally the