7. The berry is now solid, and its color is a translucent green. Each
shell contains two seeds, rounded on one side and flat on the other. The
seeds lie with the flat sides together, and, in one highly prized variety,
the two seeds grow together, forming one: this is known as the pea berry.
When the fruit is so ripe that it can be shaken from the tree, the husks
are separated from the berries, and are used, in Arabia, by the natives,
while the berries are sold.
8. The young plants are inserted in holes from twelve to eighteen inches
deep, and six or eight feet apart. If left to themselves, they would grow
to the height of eighteen or twenty feet; but they are usually dwarfed by
pruning, so that the fruit may be easily got at by the gatherer.
9. Thus dwarfed, they extend their branches until they cover the whole
space about them. They begin to yield fruit the third year. By the sixth
or seventh year they are at full bearing, and continue to bear for twenty
years or more.
l0. Before the berry can be used, it undergoes a process of roasting. The
amount of aromatic oil brought out in roasting has much to do with the
market value of coffee, and it has been found that the longer the raw
coffee is kept, the richer it becomes in this peculiar oil, and so the
more valuable.
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