Coffee and chicory

The chicory itself sold is not always pure. The Board of Inland Revenue have found, on chemical examination in different samples, beans, rye, oats (roasted and ground), caramel or burnt sugar, oxide of iron and orange berries.

The principle contained in coffee, remarks Dr. Letheby, may be considered as essential to life, inasmuch as all nations

use it; it prevents the wear and tear of the body. Now there is nothing in chicory which can do that. Chemically there is no difference between beetroot chicory and what is called real chicory; microscopically you can discover the difference. If genuine coffee is sprinkled upon the surface of a tumbler of water, it remains a considerable time floating, and when it sinks it only slightly colours the water; chicory, on the other hand, sinks quickly, and colours the water very deeply. Ground coffee is enveloped in an oily substance, which prevents the water absorbing; chicory has no such protection, and sinks immediately.

Mr. Phillips, the chemist to the Inland Board of Revenue, states that the average per-centage of chicory to coffee, when sold mixed, was found to range from 20½ to 16¾ per cent.

At a recent meeting of the British Association of Science, Mr. Horsley called attention to the use of bi-chromate of potash, in analysing adulterated samples of coffee. With diluted solutions of pure coffee, this salt produces an intense deep porter-brown coloration, whilst upon decoctions of chicory no effect is produced. He advised the following procedure: Take equal parts of chicory and coffee, and decoct them in different quantities of water. Filter, bottle, and label the liquids. Take a teaspoonful of the chicory, and dilute till it is of a brown sherry colour; boil it in a porcelain dish, with a fragment of crystallised bi-chrome. The colour will be scarcely deepened. If a similarly diluted solution of coffee is thus treated, a deep-brown tinge is obtained. By operating with mixed liquids a scale of colours may be obtained indicating the properties of the two substances. If a few grains of the sulphate of copper be added, both decoctions yield a precipitate; that from chicory being a clay yellow, and that from coffee a sepia brown. Mixed decoctions yield intermediate tints.

SECTION VIII.

CULTURE IN THE WEST INDIES AND AMERICA.

Jamaica.—The coffee-plant is said to have been first introduced into Jamaica by Sir Nicholas Lawes, in 1728, when it was cultivated on an estate called Temple Hall, on the plains of Liguanea, not far from Kingston. In 1752, 6,000,000 lbs. of coffee were exported, and in the three years ending 1807, the average annual shipment was 28,500,000 lbs. It was not until the island trade was injured by the dismemberment of Honduras that the heavy duties on sugar, and the competition of the French colonies, induced the industrious planters to turn their attention to coffee. They then petitioned for a protecting bounty, and for a considerable time this was the only British colony where its cultivation was much attended to. In 1791 there were 607 coffee-plantations in the island, with 21,000 negroes employed on them. In 1844, there were 671 plantations, and it was calculated that 20,000,000l. sterling was invested in them. Some of the finest and most productive plantations were at an elevation of 4700 feet, in the vicinity of the Blue Mountain Peak. Whilst in 1809, 83,250,000 lbs. of coffee were shipped from Jamaica, the average export for ten years past has not exceeded 6,000,000 lbs.

In the West Indies and Central America a nursery of young plants is usually raised from seed. At the age of six months these are transplanted into the field in squares of 8 to 9 feet apart. Beyond keeping the field clear of weeds, giving the plants a slight moulding, and freeing them of suckers or sprouts, they do not require any other attention for the first three years. At the expiry of this time they commence to bear fruit, and the coffee is cured either by drying the entire fruit in the sun, or by passing the fruit through what is called a pulping mill, which separates the outer pulp or covering from the beans. The beans are then subjected to a washing in a tank full of water, in order to remove the glutinous substance which adheres to them; this causes them to cure or dry more rapidly. They are then left in what is called the parchment husk, and exposed to the action of the sun on platforms laid with tiles, until they are perfectly dried, and from this they are, during crop time, spread on the wooden floors of a building called a logie, to the depth, in a heavy crop, of 12 to 18 inches. Whilst thus spread, great attention is necessary to prevent the coffee getting heated and its colour destroyed, by constantly turning it up, and by the use of some dry lime or ashes sprinkled over it. After this the beans are subjected to the operation of what is called a stamping mill, which separates the parchment husk from the beans. This stamping mill is merely two large solid wheels fixed on each end of a beam on an axle, and worked by mules moving round in a circle—the wooden wheels working in a circular trough filled with the coffee beans. After this the whole are submitted to the action of a winnowing machine, which separates the chaff from the beans, and subsequently the beans are passed through copper sieves to separate the perfect from the broken coffee, and finally handpicked and put into bags or casks for shipment.

British Guiana.—Coffee was for a length of time almost the only staple of Berbice and Demerara, but the cultivation of the sugar-cane has been substituted for it. The quantity of coffee, the produce of British Guiana, exported in 1830 was, 9,472,756 lbs.; in 1840, 3,357,300 lbs.; in 1849, 100,550 lbs.; and in 1850, 30,000 lbs.; since which it has almost ceased to be exported, scarcely sufficient being produced to supply the demand in the colony.

At one time there were about two hundred coffee plantations in the small island of Dominica, and four to five million of pounds of coffee were exported annually to Great Britain.

Porto Rico.—In proportion to its extent, this island is twice as productive as Cuba, and the quality of its coffee and other produce is of the highest class. There were, in 1862, fifty-three coffee plantations on the island, producing about 100,000 cwt. of coffee. The exports of coffee were, in

The exports of coffee from the island of Cuba, which were in 1840 upwards of 2,000,000 arrobas, were in 1858 but 21,000; and in 1859, 5000 or 6000.

Brazil.—The coffee-plant has been known in Brazil for many years; it is but about fifty years, however, since the first regular plantation was made by Mr. Moke, a Belgian, who brought the cultivation of coffee to great perfection. His plantation is still in the neighbourhood of the capital, and is carried on by his son with much success. It is astonishing to what an extent coffee has been cultivated since Mr. Moke first made his plantation. Two millions of bags of 160 lbs. each are annually exported from Rio de Janeiro, taking the average of the last seven years; 1862 was, however, short of this about half a million bags. At Barahyba do Sul, which is within a few miles of Rio, there are plantations employing six and seven hundred slaves.

The best plantations are those owned and conducted by foreigners—chiefly English, French, and Belgian—they have an air of neatness and comfort about them of which those owned by Brazilians and Portuguese are totally destitute. The foreigners use improved machinery also in preparing the berry for market, which the Brazilians, with some exceptions, do not. The coffee-berry contains two seeds, covered with a gummy, mucilaginous substance, and enclosed in a skin which is thick, sweet, and dark and red when ripe. The foreigners take off this skin by means of machinery, and the beans are washed until they are divested of the mucilage which covers them. They are then dried and put into bags ready for market. The Brazilians dry the beans with the skin on. In the process of drying, the skin first becomes dark, and finally black, and when crisp, is rubbed off the bean, which is then washed. In this process, however, there is great danger of fermentation. The skin contains a vast amount of saccharine matter, and successful attempts have been made to extract from it sugar and spirit; but either through poor machinery, or other mismanagement, it was found to be unprofitable, and the experiment was abandoned. The skin is exceedingly sweet, almost as much so to the taste as the sugar-cane.

The coffee-plant can be propagated from the seed, but the most prevalent method in Brazil is by young plants, which may be had by the thousand on old plantations. The young shrub is taken up in August—generally when it is about two years old—and planted in good soil. The fourth year it produces coffee, and the fifth year it commences to bear regular crops, the yield being from a pound and a half to three pounds per tree. Trees have been known to last for many years on good rich soil, and some on Mr. Moke’s plantation are still bearing which were planted forty years ago; on hill-sides, however, where the soil is light, the plant decays in the course of eight or ten years. The picking season commences in July, and in the low lands generally concludes by the end of August; among the hills, however, where there are frequent showers, and where there is much shade, the season does not close until some time in September.

The four coffee-growing provinces of Brazil, properly speaking, are Rio de Janeiro, San Paulo, Minas, and Bahia. In the two former the agriculturists have for some time past directed their attention almost exclusively to this article. In Bahia its cultivation is steadily, although slowly, increasing. Coffee is grown in the provinces of Maranham, Parana, and St. Catherine’s, but only to a very small extent, the amount produced being insufficient to meet the demand. The cultivation of coffee is rapidly increasing in St. Paulo, and is promoted by the railroad extending from Santos to Jundiahy. The United States usually takes one-half of the crop of Brazil coffee.

The following figures give the average quantity of coffee exported from the empire of Brazil during the undermentioned years, comprising a period previous and subsequent to the abolition of the slave trade in 1851, and showing a steady increase in the export since 1840:

The yearly shipments from Rio in the last four years have been as follows:

besides 200,000 to 300,000 bags annually from Santos. The bags contain rather more than six arrobas, or one cwt. and a half.

Costa Rica.—The quality of this coffee is recognised as excellent. In order to place it in a proper degree of estimation in foreign markets, some proprietors of plantations have not omitted getting it chemically analysed in Europe; the result of which examination has classed it in the third degree, among those kinds generally esteemed as the best.

The following figures show the production of coffee in Costa Rica; the bulk of the crop is sent to Great Britain:

Venezuela.—Within the last thirty years Venezuela has made great progress in coffee culture. The exports, which were not more than 13,000,000 lbs. in 1833, had risen to 15,000,000 lbs. in 1850; but since then the culture has been much interfered with by civil war. The exports from La Guayra were, in 1855, 17,375,000 lbs.; in 1856, 12,357,000 lbs.; and in 1857, 16,031,000 lbs. Washed coffee sells there at 8s. per cwt. higher than the unwashed.

In Venezuela, the plan followed in drying the coffee is this. The berries are spread out upon hurdles in the sun, where they undergo the vinous fermentation from fourteen to twenty days, and then dry. The beans are freed from the pulpy husk by a mill in two operations, and from the parchment, &c., by winnowing. Although a single tree may bear as much as 10 to 20 lbs., the average in Venezuela is under 2 lbs. An acre planted with 2560 trees yields there an annual crop of about 1100 lbs. of dry beans.

In Ecuador coffee has of late greatly engrossed the attention of planters, from its superior quality and the increased demand; it commands a higher price than any other product of the country in proportion. As the people are everywhere dedicating themselves to its culture, in a few years it is probable that this country will export a considerable quantity. In 1855, 776 cwt. only were shipped; in 1861, although the harvest was exceedingly scanty, the exports were 1480 cwt.

Guatemala.—Some twenty years ago considerable plantations of coffee were made in different parts of the republic of Guatemala, and had the undertaking been followed up with proper and steady constancy and attention, it might, perhaps, by this time, have become an important article of export. Unfortunately its culture was abandoned, owing to the insurrections of the Indian population. Some attempts have been made again to introduce its culture by making fresh plantations, but hitherto not to any extent worthy of mention. The exports of coffee in 1860 were about 63 tons. In the department of Vera Paz, there are said to be now about half a million of coffee plants in bearing, and nurseries of about a million more plants will soon be ready for transplanting. The greater part of the plantations are situated in the neighbourhood of Coban, where the vicinity of Teleman, on the river Polochec, which disembogues into the gulf of Dulce, affords a convenient channel for shipping the produce.

SECTION IX.

CULTURE IN ARABIA.

It has been understood for several years that much of the coffee which finds its way into England as genuine Mocha is, in reality, Malabar coffee, sent to ports on the Persian Gulf from Bombay, and when thus naturalised, finding its way to Europe. But the coffee of India is now competing successfully with that of Arabia in markets which the latter had for centuries commanded as its own. In a few years the Indian article will entirely surpass the Arabian. It is the old story of enterprise originated and directed by Europeans driving competition out of the market. Seeing that the Arabs are in the habit of baking the cow-dung and cakes for food on the same wall, they cannot be suspected of any violent antipathy to dirt per se. But, passionate lovers as they are of a good cup of coffee, they can easily understand that an equal quantity of well-cleaned Malabar coffee is cheaper than that brought in the buggalows of the Nijd Arabs, and which is described as full of extraneous matter, such as pieces of the coffee-husk, &c. But the Indian coffee is actually sold cheaper, quantity for quantity. The consumption of Yemen coffee is now entirely confined to the wealthier chiefs; the finest kind, and that most sought after, being the small, of a light-green colour. Latterly, the Yemen coffee has been all sent to Bagdad, a compliment which the ancient city of the Sultans cannot fail to appreciate at its true value. It is too dear and too dirty for the poor Arabs of Bussorah, while the flavour of the Malabar kind is found closely to approximate to that of Yemen.

The coffee is generally grown half way up the slopes of the hills, but some is cultivated on lower ground, surrounded by large trees for shade. The harvest is gathered at three periods of the year, the principal being in May. Cloths are spread under the trees, which are shaken, that the ripe fruit may drop. The berries are then collected and exposed to the sun on mats to dry. A heavy roller is afterwards passed over the berries, to break the envelopes, and the husk is winnowed away with a fan. The berries are further dried before being stored.

Arabian coffee was first cultivated by the Dutch, and some of their plants sent by the French to the West Indies, where it is now successfully cultivated. So that one has a difficulty in deciding where it is indigenous, as it is a much more important article of agriculture in the West Indies, Java, Ceylon, and Southern India, than in its native countries.

In Syria the coffee-plant is of natural growth; but as the European writers who were engaged in the Crusades do not mention it, it could not have been much used during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Bruce affirms that the qualities of it were well known in Africa, and that the Gallae, a wandering tribe, which was obliged to traverse the deserts, carried no other provision than balls compounded of coffee and butter, one of which would keep them in health and spirits through a day’s journey better than any other kind of food. In the Royal Library at Paris is an Arabian manuscript, containing a voluminous history of coffee, in which it is said that Gemaleddin-Ahou-Abdallah, Mufti of Aden, first introduced its use among the Turks, upon his return from Persia, where he had experienced the beneficial effects of it as a common beverage. The effendi, the kadi, and all the inferior officers of the government, followed the example of this chief of the law. The use of coffee descended through the harem to the house of every merchant, and the town of Aden set the example to the rest of Arabia.

SECTION X.

CULTIVATION IN CEYLON.

Elevation must ever be an important consideration; though we have no doubt that by the use of manures coffee might be made to do well and bear to a limited extent at the level of the sea in Ceylon. We believe this to be, however, so completely artificial, that it will never again be tried whilst land is available from 1500 feet and upwards of elevation, where the plant grows vigorously without more than ordinary care being bestowed. The general effect of elevation may be described very shortly; the lower ranges, with fair soil, produce the heaviest crops and the soonest after planting, whilst the plantations on higher elevations produce smaller crops, but a finer quality of produce, and take a longer time to come into full bearing. There are many circumstances which go to produce climate, besides differences of elevation. On a plantation formed in a large district of forest yet uncleared, the climate will be colder and more moist than when the formation of other estates has cleared away the forest around it. The proximity of a high mountain peak, or being situated on the shoulder of a mountain which towers to a great elevation above the level of the plantation, will also produce more cold and wet than if the garden were opened on a lower range and to the full height of such a position. Plate 4, for instance, shows such a locality in the view of Konda-galla estate, near Neura-ellia, Ceylon. At low elevations long continued dry weather is more frequent than on the higher ranges, inasmuch as the clouds are frequently broken by the distant hills before they reach; and when there is no rain about, estates on the higher ranges are less parched, and atmospherically enjoy a moisture of which the lower hills are destitute. Still these various conditions are only advantageous or hurtful under varying circumstances; high elevation, cold and wet, and low elevation, heat, and drought, are alike unfavourable as prevailing characteristics; it is their due and seasonable admixture

which is found most favourable to the profitable production of the coffee-plant. Perhaps the least favourable localities are those high positions where the natural vegetation is of the alpine character; in such positions the plant will only struggle for an existence; it therefore follows that the land selected should be well under these extreme elevations.

Soil of all kinds has had its advocates, and in turn been condemned by all. Depth and freeness are perhaps its most favourable states; dark black mould is always good; but wherever there is sufficiency of depth found beneath a virgin forest, at the proper elevation and climate, coffee has come on successfully. The land which has by general opinion been condemned as unfit for continued production is that covered with small jungle after the original forest has been cut down, and the land made to produce a rich crop for the natives. Perhaps it may be the exposure of the soil to the sun, and exhaustion by the large weeds which it produces, which are so injurious to it. The modern system of manuring is rapidly equalising the value of all soils, though deep lands on a limestone bottom, or strewed with granite boulders, are always considered highly favourable for coffee cultivation. The proximity of land to roads is a point of great importance in its selection, both as directly and indirectly affecting the outlay in forming a plantation, and probably for a long time determining the large item of expense under the head of transport of produce.

Felling and clearing, as the name implies, is cutting down the jungle and burning it off, so as to leave the land clear for planting. It is conducted as follows. Beginning from the lower part of the land and working upwards, the undergrowth, or small jungle, is cut down with catties or bill-hooks, leaving the forest trees free and open for the labours of the axemen. Likewise beginning from the lowest part of the field, the labourers, generally village Singhalese, who are extremely expert at this work, cut the trees nearly through by notches at the lower and upper sides, gradually retiring up the hill, until a tree of larger dimensions is cut, and being sent down, crashes all the others beneath it. When this is cleverly managed, several acres will often be opened to the daylight at one time; much, however, depends upon the steepness of the ascent and the heaviness of the forest. On the highest elevations the trees are smallest, and come down lightest, and on the lower elevations it may frequently happen that for acres and acres the trees are of that immense size that every log has required four men to cut it from the stump. Not unfrequently some of these trees have such projecting roots that the axemen have to erect stages around them to reach the ordinary trunk, which will each give employment for six hours to four men to cut through. After the trees have been felled, the lopping has to be attended to; this is to cut off all the tops and branches, and in some cases to cut the trunks across, so that the mass cut down may lay compactly and dry, as upon this depends much of the success of the burning, and, therefore, the economy of the operation. Small or light forest is often the most expensive to lop, from the lifeless fall of the trees, and the comparatively greater quantity of head and branch; whereas tall and heavy forest trees fly as it were under the axe from the stump, and in falling break themselves and all beneath them; in this manner some heavy forests cost less to clear than a lighter growth. The clearing having been left from six weeks to about two months, according to the weather, is fired, which is done generally by setting fire to it chiefly at the lower ends in several places; by this means the fire is soon connected, and burning in the dryest or first cut down portions, unites in a sweeping flame, rushes up the hill, destroying all before it; such is the power of the flame from below, that when the burning is successful the part last cut, probably many acres, and yet lying green upon the ground, is consumed with the rest. After the flame has passed away, nothing should be seen but the smoking black logs of the large trees, which, wherever they cross each other and do not lay upon the ground, require to be cut across and brought down. If the operation has been successfully managed, the land is now in readiness for the next operation—Lining, or staking out the positions of the intended plants. This is performed in many ways, but it is essential to have it done well, that the plants should make perfect lines across the ground to be planted, in order to maintain regularity in the plantation work, and give the best possible appearance to the field; therefore no expense necessary to ensure its correct and workmanlike performance should be grudged. The simplest method is by means of a line, with marks placed at equal distances for the spaces between the plants up the hill. This carried by men at each end, who respectively measure a distance with a rod for that purpose from the last peg, and holding the line taught from end to end; boys following with pegs ready cut put them in at the marks on the line. This method is likely to lead to inaccuracy on a large feature, in consequence of the irregularity of the ground, and from the small inaccuracies accumulating in the measurement between each laying down of the line. A better way is to lay out a feature in squares of the line, and these into parallels across the feature, and then drop the line between each peg on the parallels, putting in the remaining pegs by the marks on the line. Some planters have an excellent plan of laying down a number of lines up and down the hill at measured distances, and then two men with a shorter line measure distances upwards on the two outside lines, and peg-men put in their sticks at the points where the lines cross each other. We have seen some plantations laid out by the use of the theodolite, but this is not an instrument to be found on many estates. The object to be gained in lining is to carry the plants in straight lines parallel to each other, at the same bearing over the whole estate, and to make them cross each other at right angles; by this means lines will be formed four ways, at the two right angles and at the two diagonals. When this has been successfully achieved, there is, under any circumstances, a workmanlike character about the plantation; vacancies in the planting are more easily detected, the arrangements for weeding, picking, pruning, and manuring are made without confusion. Diagonal lines across the features of land are said to be best, inasmuch as the stems of the trees by this arrangement offer somewhat more resistance to the washing down of soil by the rains.

Much argument has been held as to the proper distances at which coffee-trees should be planted; and in visiting the various districts it will be seen that all distances and all forms have been resorted to. The result of this extended experiment has produced a very general opinion in favour of close planting; that is, 6 feet by 6 feet, or 5 feet by 6 feet, or 4 feet 9 inches by 5 feet. The reasons in favour of close planting are these, that the extra number of plants to the acre is followed in the first two crops at least by a proportionate increase of crop. By close planting weeds are hindered from growing, and, what is of more consequence still, the ground is sooner covered by the growing plants, and therefore protected from the sun, exposure to which is found to impoverish more than anything else the surface soil, from which the plant chiefly seeks its nourishment. With an average good soil, and careful handling of the trees and manuring, it is found that closely-planted coffee may be made to continue to bear highly; that is, in proportion to the extra number of plants to the acre. Close planting is serviceable in enabling the plants to outlive the effect of exposure to high winds, which in some places are most destructive. The next proceeding is holing (which, as its name implies, is to make holes in preparation for planting the coffee, at the distances staked out by the lining). As coffee is planted in a virgin soil, which cannot be cleared of roots, rocks, and logs, for the operation of the plough, and were it cleared of these the disturbance of the soil would probably cause it to be carried away by the heavy rains; holes have to be made, and the larger these are, the nearer the approach is to that movement of the soil, which in general sets at liberty its fertilising properties. Holes are made from 18 inches to 2 feet every way, into which before planting the surface soil is scraped with a hoe. It is customary to contract for this work, which I believe is generally performed now with a sort of crowbar having a spud blade at one end; with these the roots of trees are cut through and rocks and stones taken out, the loosened soil being removed with the hand or with a cocoa-nut shell. This tool is furnished to the Singhalese because they prefer to sit down and work leisurely, but where men can be employed at day-wages, and provided with mattocks to break the soil and cut out the roots and stones, and hoes to clear out the loosened earth, the same work may be far more economically performed, inasmuch as the labourers being on their feet give not only their arms, but their whole body, to the exertion, and have not to raise themselves from a sitting position between each hole they have to make.

SECTION XI.

BUILDINGS, PLANTING, &c., IN CEYLON.

Plate 5 shows the main works and buildings at Messrs. Worms’ estates, Puselawa, Ceylon.

The position of the pulping-house should influence the selection of the spots for the other buildings, unless other circumstances determine it. The bungalow should, if possible, be an easy distance from the store, that the manager may without difficulty superintend the work, which at crop time is going on often at night as well as in the daytime. One set of lines for the labourers, for the same reason, should be near to the store, another set may be erected more centrically with reference to the field labour of the estate.

With reference to lines and bungalow, especially the latter, they will be erected according to the manager’s taste, and in a great measure depend upon the material to be obtained in the particular locality for constructing them. True economy will be practised in making permanent and substantial dwellings which will require only slight repairs occasionally.

The selection of the land for the pulping-house and stores and drying-ground is all important, and should only be attempted by a resident manager to whom a long residence on the plantation has afforded an intimate acquaintance with every feature of the land. The advantages which have to be

sought and combined are, availability of water power, both to drive the machinery and for a water-course to the pulper, on a site convenient to the fields from which the crop is to be brought, and so level that it may be fitted for its purposes at the least possible expense.

Water power is not always used, nor is it available on every estate; but as there may be often good reasons to adopt it afterwards, it should always be considered in the primary arrangements. It may be applied to so many economic objects—saw-mills, drying apparatus, &c.—that it should always be applied, if possible, to everything undertaken on the estate requiring a moving power.

Plate 6 is an exterior view of a pulping-house on Messrs. Worms’ estates, Puselawa.

Coffee when gathered from the tree fully ripe is like a rich scarlet cherry, out of which on being squeezed two coffee-berries break forth, each covered with a light skin resembling parchment, and moist, with a sweet mucilaginous fluid which rapidly decomposes. The machine called a pulper is for the purpose of removing the cherry skin or husk; this it does by passing it between a barrel armed with perforated copper, forming a grater, and a sharp-edged board called the chop, which by means of wedges or screws is placed at the proper distance from the barrel to ensure the greater part of the coffee being pressed against it, but not so close that any of the berries should be pricked through their parchment covering. As coffee is seldom uniform in size, much passes forward from which the husk, or pulp, as it is called, has not been completely removed; this, being separated by a sieve worked by the machinery, is returned by hand to the hopper. The coffee, deprived of its husk, goes forward by a channel prepared for it into a cistern, the pulps being thrown off behind; these latter are now generally saved to be carried to the manure pit. The coffee is left to soak in the cistern for the night, or for that length of time which is sufficient to wash off the mucilage, an operation which is facilitated by a slight fermentation—not, however, always conducted with safety to the future quality of the coffee. Pulping-houses are supplied with several cisterns, into which the several pulpings may be run off that the work may not stand still.

Plate 7 gives a view of the interior lower floor of the pulping-house on Messrs. Worms’ estates, Puselawa.

In the pulping-house above the pulpers is a large floor called the cherry loft, into which the coffee in cherry from the field is measured, and from whence, through holes, it is made to fall into the pulpers, from the pulpers it is carried to the cisterns, and when washed is taken out by the labourers to be dried, which brings us to speak of the store and drying apparatus. Before doing so we may mention that the pulper, which is considered a very imperfect machine, is generally driven by four men at two handles, aided by a fly-wheel; the power is immediately applied to turn the barrel, to which is connected a large cog-wheel, which moves a pinion attached, to work a sieve or riddle.

Pulpers turned by water power, if properly erected to resist the strain of the connecting machinery, work with more equality of motion, and therefore do their work better than those worked by hand.

Many improvements in the pulping-machine have been suggested without success; the last, which is now very generally adopted, is called a crusher, and consists in a kind of shield instead of a chop, which presses the coffee against the barrel. This machine is said to do as much work in a given time as the pulper, and with less liability to cut or prick the berry.

It has been said that the pulper is an imperfect machine; it is so in respect to the incompleteness with which it performs the work for which it is constructed. The work

complete, would be to pass forward the whole of the cherry coffee from the hopper, as clean parchment coffee, into the cistern, and completely separate the pulp. Instead of this, not only is there much coffee passed forward unpulped, which has to be returned to the hopper, but much pulp comes forward with the coffee into the cistern. To overcome these imperfections, many hands are required attending the process of pulping; several with sieves receive all the coffee as it comes through the trough into the cistern, and remove all the pulp in it. The object of this is to please the sight by making the sample even, and to take away a material which both, renders the coffee difficult to dry, and, being decomposed vegetable matter of a saccharine nature, is liable by fermentation to injure the quality of the coffee itself. The coffee which is passed unpulped, having been returned to the hopper as it accumulates at the end of the pulper riddle, until the picking has all been pulped, is sometimes passed through another pulper, set closer, and what then remains is dried separately in the husk. The imperfections of the pulper have recently attracted much notice, and improvements are making in it.

We now arrive at the crowning operation of all—Planting. Economy should be studied in every part of the work, and to plant to the best advantage, nothing is more conducive than having the traces of the roads and paths through the clearings already opened if possible, so as to be available for bringing the plants from the nurseries. Plants and stumps are both used in forming plantations; the first are seedlings, reared in nurseries until they are about 8 to 10 inches high, or just crowned—that is, after the appearance of their first lateral branches; the second are the stock and roots of an older tree. Under varying circumstances there is much to be said in favour of each. If the weather is dry and the season advanced, stumps may be planted with less risk, and in less time; but if plants are to be had, and the season favourable, it is generally considered they are the best. In putting them into the ground, if practicable, they should be removed from the nursery with balls of earth about their roots; this is even the most economical, as being almost an assurance against failure, and the tree thus planted receives no check, but begins to grow directly. If, on the other hand, the plants are to be brought too far to carry them with balls of earth, extreme care should be taken to place them with the tap root perpendicularly in the soil. Invariably the effect of a tap root not being placed perpendicularly in the hole is, that when the tree is grown to two or three feet in height, the upper shoot and branches take a paler colour to that of the healthy plant, which is of very dark green, the leaves also become small and elongated, and occasionally somewhat mottled with a yellow tinge. Such plants will frequently spring into flower and fruit prematurely, which generally turns out “boll,” or empty in husk, and as prematurely dies away. This remark is not uncalled for, as it requires extreme vigilance to prevent the labourers carelessly doubling up the tap as they place the plant in the earth. The hole should be well filled up and the earth trodden in round the plant, which should never be buried below the crown of the root.

Nurseries of plants are variously made; much contention has existed on the merits of shade and no shade. Shade is not required, and the plants are best without it; yet it happens most nurseries are in some respects subject to shade, as they have to be formed frequently before any portion of the land is opened, and should be protected by a belt of forest from the fire of the clearing; the jungle being cleared off and carried to the sides of the ground selected. The soil is dug with hoes and picks about two spits deep, and the roots of the jungle carefully taken up, as these would afterwards break the rootlets of the plants when taken up for transplanting. The ground being laid out in beds, is sometimes sown broadcast with coffee-seed, which only requires to be most lightly covered with a little sifted mould, or the seeds are pressed in, in rows, with the finger. Sometimes small seedlings, with two leaves and the seed leaves, are brought from another nursery, or from beneath the coffee-bushes of a plantation or native garden, and lined out into beds about six inches apart; these make by far the best and hardiest plants for planting out into the fields.

We must not omit to notice the necessity for carefully replacing, with as little delay as possible, all failures in the planting. The longer this is delayed the more difficult does it become to do it well; and when neglected, besides making the fields appear irregular and unsightly, the gaps left become weed beds, and so much of the bearing space of the acre being lost, the crop is affected in proportion.

When stumps are planted, a number of buds or suckers make their appearance on the root; one of these only should be left, and the others carefully rubbed off with the finger, as often as the weeding party goes over the field.

The sprout from the bud which is left grows up and becomes the stem of a tree, and throws out its laterals somewhat higher than the tree grown from a nursery plant. The stump generally produces its first crop a little out of season; for planting up failures stumps give the least trouble.

Next to lining and careful planting, nothing enhances the good appearance of a plantation so much as the workmanlike formation of the roads and buildings. It is, therefore, desirable, by the use of a theodolite, to trace the roads accurately before cutting them out. Formerly it was frequently the practice to take the road by the eye from point to point, evading the natural difficulties of rocks or large roots, by taking the breakneck path above or below them. Roads on partial clearings should always have reference to the land which is afterwards to be felled and connected with the same set of works.

Plate 8 shows a coffee district near Puselawa, Ceylon.