Science [pp. 329]

SCIENCE.
and a half pounds per tree. This is,
however, a rare result, though it has occurred. The general expectation is that
the crop of a plantation four years old
from the seed will cover the expenses
of the plantation for that year; a small
profit is obtained the fifth year, and the
trees are in full bearing in the sixth.
They may be considered in their prime
when ten or twelve years old. Trees
of from eight years of age, when properly attended to and pruned with care
and judgment, will produce, individually, a number of pounds of coffee corresponding with their age-an additional
pound for each additional year - until the twelfth year, or even until the
fifteenth, or possibly the twentieth year.
There are trees still bearing in Costa
Rica that were planted more than fifty
years ago, and the writer was shown
one of these patriarchs which produced
seventy pounds of coffee in one year.
That land suitable to the growth of
the plant may be found in California,
there can be but little doubt; but that
success will attend experiments in its
culture in this State seems by no means
certain. The existence of a winter,
though a mild one, in California, and
the fact that the winter and the rains
are contemporaneous, are conditions unfavorable to the plant. The effect of the
season here would probably be to cause
the plant to put forth its flowers, in
company with other fruit-trees, at the
spring of the year, and not at the commencement of the rains. In the tropics
there is a hot and genial sun always, and
it is upon the rains that fructification
depends in those regions, while in California it is the returning sun that decides
the period of germination. The consequence would be, that the coffee-tree,
during the six months that it is maturing its fruit-a time when it requires
abundance of moisture, and over the
whole of which the rainy season extends in Central America- would be
almost without a shower of rain. This
consideration seems to be a serious one;
and unless irrigation may be found to be
a fitting substitute for the required rains,
it is probable that the culture of this
plant can not be profitably prosecuted.
Perhaps in the southern counties of the
State the coffee-tree,with the aid of irrigation, may be found to thrive.
SCIENCE.
The winds of heaven trample down the pines,
Or creep in lazy tides along the lea;
Leap the wild waters from the smitten rock,
Or crawl with childish babble to the sea;
But why the tempests out of heaven blow,
Or what the purpose of the seaward flow,
No man hath known, and none shall ever know.
Why seek to know? To follow Nature up -
Against the current to her source, why care?
Vain is the toil; he's wisest still who knows
All science is but formulated prayer Prayer for the warm winds and the quickening rain,
Prayer for sharp sickle and for laboring wain,
To gather from the planted past the grain.
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