e most part, the workers are of
Italian extraction, who have almost altogether superseded the Indian and
Negro laborers of the early days. The workers live on the _fazendas_ in
quarters provided by the _fazendeiros_, and are paid a weekly or monthly
wage for their services; or they may enter upon a year's contract to
cultivate the trees, receiving extra pay for picking and other work.
Brazil in the past has experimented with the slave system, with
government colonization, with co-operative planting, with the harvesting
system, and with the share system. And some features of all these
plans--except slavery, which was abolished in 1888--are still employed
in various parts of the country, although the wage system predominates.

[Illustration: By Courtesy of J. Aron & Co.

DRYING GROUNDS ON FAZENDA SCHMIDT, THE LARGEST IN BRAZIL]

Brazil has six gradings for its Sao Paulo coffees, which are also
classified as Bourbon Santos, Flat Bean Santos, and Mocha-seed Santos.
Rio coffees are graded by the number of imperfections for New York, and
as washed and unwashed for Havre. (See chapter XXIV.)

COLOMBIA. Practically all the countries of the western hemisphere
producing coffee in large quantities for export trade use the
cleaning-and-grading machines specified in the first part of this
chapter; and the installation of the equipment is increasing as its
advantages become better known.

In Colombia, now (1922), next to Brazil the world's largest producer,
the wet method of preparing the coffee for market is most generally
followed, the drying processes often being a combination of sun and
drying machines. Many plantations have their own hulling equipment; but
much of the crop goes in the cherry to local commercial centers where
there are establishments that make a specialty of cleaning and grading
the coffee.

The Colombia coffee crop is gathered twice a year, the principal one in
March and April and the smaller one in November and December, although
some picking is done throughout the year. For this labor native Indian
and negro women are preferred, as they are more rapid, skilful, and
careful in handling the trees. Contrary to the method in Brazil, where
the tree at one handling is stripped of its entire bearings, ripe and
unripe fruit, here only the fully ripened fruit is picked. That
necessitates going over the ground several times, as the berries
progressively ripen. More time is consumed in this laborious operation,
bu