the interesting plantations of the country was started a few
years ago in a remote region by an enterprising American investor. It
was located on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains 3,000 to 5,000
feet above sea-level, about twenty-five miles from the city of Santa
Marta. An extended acreage of forest-covered land was acquired, about
600 acres of which were cleared and either planted in coffee or reserved
for pasturage and other kinds of agriculture. When the plantation came
to maturity, it had nearly 300,000 trees. In 1919, there were 425,000
trees producing 3,600 hundred-weight of coffee.

A typical Colombian plantation is the Namay, owned by one of the bankers
of the Banco de Colombia of Bogota. It is located a good half day's
travel by rail and horseback from the city, about 5,000 feet above the
level of the sea. There are 1,000 acres in the plantation, with 250,000
trees having an ultimate productive capacity of nearly 2,000 bags a
year. During crop times, which are from May to July, about two hundred
families are needed on an estate of this size.

VENEZUELA. Seeds of the coffee plant were brought into Venezuela from
Martinique in 1784 by a priest who started a small plantation near
Caracas. Five years later, the first export of the bean was made, 233
bags, or about 30,000 pounds. Within fifty years, production had
increased to upward of 50,000,000 pounds annually; and by the end of the
nineteenth century, to more than 100,000,000 pounds.

Situated between the equator and the twelfth parallel of north latitude,
in the world's coffee belt, this country has an area equal to that of
all the United States east of the Mississippi river and north of the
Ohio and Potomac rivers, or greater than that of France, Germany, and
the Netherlands combined--599,533 square miles.

The chain of the Maritime Andes, reaching eastward across Colombia and
Venezuela, approaches the Caribbean coast in the latter country. Along
the slopes and foot-hills of these mountains are produced some of the
finest grades of South American coffee. Here the best coffee grows in
the _tierra templada_ and in the lower part of the _tierra fria_, and is
known as the _cafe de tierra fria_, or coffee of the cold, or high,
land. In these regions the equable climate, the constant and adequate
moisture, the rich and well-drained soil, and the protecting forest
shade afford the conditions under which the plant grows and thrives
best. On the fertile lowl