AtfGUSi' I, 1 8S4,] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



*33 



fitted internally with taste; and each would easily bring 

 a rental of £40 per annum in the suburbs of Portsmouth, 

 although the inhabitants of these residences pay 5s per 

 week for occupying them! To each houae, moreover, is 

 apportioned a front and back garden, and the tenants are 

 enabled to grow their own vegetables and fruit, and de- 

 corate the front parterres with flowers. At the rear of 

 every dwelling is an outhouse with appliances for wash- 

 ing, and a pump of good water, while the kitchens are 

 fitted with modem cooking ranges. Behind these resid- 

 ences i6 a spacious orchard, planted with apple, plum, 

 pear, and cherry trees ; and at their extreme rear, to com- 

 plete my description, flows the " Bourn," which at this 

 juncture forms a natural cascade in miniature. Thus it 

 will be perceived that Bournville is by no means lacking 

 in attractiveness to those who admire the country. 

 Of course, it being at the time of my visit as near an 

 approximation to winter as the clerk of the weather could 

 manage, now that he has mixed up the seasons and given 

 us mild Decembers and terrible Mays, I was not in a 

 position to fully appreciate the beauties of the place ; but 

 from its idealic situation I can well imagine what it 

 must be in summer, especially in the halcyon month of 

 June, when the roses bloom in the workmen's gardens 

 and the rooks' nests in the trees are hidden by a shelt- 

 ering green. . 



The nearest house to the factory is a superior villa resid- 

 ence, which the firm built especially for their energetic 

 foreman. This villa is detached, and is a commanding 

 and handsome dwelling, designed and constructed witli 

 evident taste and elegance of design. The grounds at- 

 tached are spacious, and few more desirable homes are 

 to be found. I must not omit to add that the all-im- 

 portant sanitary arrangements of these villas have been 

 very carefully considered ; and, before leaving this part of 

 my subject, should 'mention that while the workpeople are 

 at their several tasks — which are performed, by the way, on 

 the system of piecework, which is most just alike to 

 employer and employed — ample provision is made for the 

 wants of their " inner man," and arrangements carried 

 out effectively, so that they may have their meals com- 

 fortably. Spacious dining-rooms have been provided sepa- 

 rately on the premises for both men and women. Gas 

 stoves and cooking apparatus have been erected here, and 

 hot dinners can be procured in a very few minutes. So 

 complete are the cuisine arrangements that there is really 

 no delay. In the females' cooking department a gas oven 

 ha8 been fitted, on which about 220 dinners are cooked 

 daily. In addition to this an apparatus for frying, to- 

 gether with the necessary pans, has been provided by the 

 firm for cooking chops and steaks, and such like. To 

 demonstrate that there is no time lost in waiting, I may 

 mention that about 60 chops can be cooked in about ten 

 minutes. Many of the hands who- bring their food ready 

 dressed, of course, only require to warm it : but for those 

 who wish to use the gas-oven or other apparatus there 

 is ample accommodation, and no confusion occurs. 

 Throughout the entire range of buildings order and regu- 

 larity are preserved with scrupulous exactitude, particular 

 attention— as might have been expected, considering the 

 nature of the article manipulated— being paid to clean- 

 liness. In thi6 latter respect a commendable care is ap- 

 parent, as I noticed that all the women and girls em- 

 ployed, and who outnumbered the men considerably, the 

 taskwork being mostly suited to feminine hands on account 

 of their greater delicacy of touch, were uniformly dressed 

 in a brown holland costume, tightly fitting in at the neck 

 and extending down to the heels, and which, by being 

 tied in round the middle by a band of the same material, 

 very much resembled a light ulster of the present mode, 

 such a favourite with Landport young ladies ! This cos- 

 tume of the workgirls, covering their whole dress as it 

 does, make them look very neat and clean ; and, as they 

 are marshalled to enter the refectory, they appear as a 

 little army of Amazons clad in Indian khaki, such as was 

 adopted by our troops in the recent, aud what very much 

 looks like a present, Egyptian campaign. The firm, while 

 looking after these points of detail in the dress of their 

 employees, are evidently opposed, and very rightly too, to 

 long working hours, especially where females aro con- 

 cerned. The women commence work at 9 o'clock aud 

 leave at 6, long intervals being allowed in between those 

 ours for meals and theuece ssary rest required after ward6. 



Every morning, too, from a quarter-past 9 o'clock Id the 

 half hour the " hands " assemble in the general dining 

 hall for a short and simple religious service, so as to 

 begin their day's work with the divine blessing. It has 

 been remarked that this daily gathering helps to form 

 a bond of union between the workpeople themselves, as 

 well as between the employers and the employed. One 

 of the firm, I was told, gives a short prayer and then 

 reads a portion of scripture, aud after a hymn has been 

 sung the brief service is over, and work is resumed. 



But I must hurry on to decribe the manufacture of 

 crude cocoa into the luxurious beverage which we relish 

 so much at breakfast, or else my description of Messrs. 

 Oadbury's works will be something like Shakspeare's play 

 of " Hamlet " with the part of the young Prince of Den- 

 mark left out. 



The cocoa plant, I may say at the start, is no stranger 

 to me. I was not familiar with it at its first discovery, 

 certainly, for that dates back to the period when Co- 

 lumbus originally found out the new Western "World with 

 all its wonders, although it must have been known to 

 the Mexicans of Montezuma for centuries before ; but I 

 may undoubtedly state that I was on terms of acquaint- 

 anceship with the plaut in its native wilds, even in the 

 earliest days of my boyhood, for I went out to the West 

 Indies when quite a child, aud almost the most vivid 

 impression I have of tropical vegetation is of seeing the 

 bright green leaves of the cocoa tree, with its elliptical, 

 oval-pointed, yellowish-purple fruit — something like a 

 vegetable marrow of a somewhat peculiar shape. Each of 

 the cocoa fruit pods contains some 20 to 40 seeds 

 or " beans," which are imbedded in a sort of creamy, 

 thick, acid pulp. Common enough in the West Iudian 

 islands of the Leeward group that stud the heel of the 

 Carribbian Sea — such as Grenada, Trinidad, St. Vincent, 

 and Oariacua — where the mountaiuous nature of the 

 ground gives it that shelter which it requires as much 

 as the heat for ripening. It is also to be found in Nicara- 

 gua, Honduras, Central America, Brazil aud Demerara, 

 aud also, too, iu the Mauritius and the unfortunate island 

 of Madagascar which the French are now trying to find 

 some pretext for annexing. I must point out here that 

 shade is so absolutely necessary for the proper fruition of 

 the cocoa, as well as a tropical heat, that the plants are 

 invariably set beneath the shelter of a larger tree, which 

 the Spaniards term La Madre del Cocoa, or " The Cocoa 

 Mother ;" and thus, iu quiet groves as shaded and still, 

 but for the parrots' chatter and the monkeys' gambols, 

 as any that Virgil murmured the Tili/re tu patula under 

 the pods grow and the cocoa arrives at maturity. When 

 the fruit is quite ripe it is gathered, generally by being 

 sliced from the boughs by a cutlass wielded by the arm 

 of some stalwart negro; the pod being slit open and the 

 nuts with their creamy adjunct which holds them all to- 

 gether placed in casks, where they are pressed down by 

 weights aud left to ferment, so as to get rid of the pulp, 

 and, as it is said, improve the flavour of the cocoa. 

 After some litWe time has elapsed the uuts are then 

 placed in wide open trays in the Boucan or drying-house 

 — whence the name " bucaneer " originated, from those 

 freebooters of the sea living on jerked or sun-dried meat 

 where it is exposed for some days to the sun, after 

 which the nibs are placed in bags and exported to Eng- 

 land and elsewhere. On their arrival at the Bournville 

 factory, the nuts of the cocoa — not coconuts, let the 

 reader please remember — are transferred from the hags 

 iu which they are imported to large and capacious bins 

 — not Linus, our national executioner previously alluded 

 to as living in Birmingham when off active duty ! From 

 these bins the first process the cocoa undergoes is to 

 cleanse it from all impurities of dust, dirt, and such like 

 that accompanied it from the land of its birth. This is 

 done by silting it in a long cylinder fitted with variously 

 graduated sieves. From these the nuts drop, automatic- 

 ally assorted to several sizes, into boxes below, cleansed 

 from all superflous substances, and ready for "cooking" 

 — their second experience being to be roasted in revolv- 

 ing cylinders over bright coke fires. This is a very deli- 

 cate process, and so important a one that very careful 

 attention is necessary, and experienced workmen, whose 

 judgment is almost unerring, are entrusted to superintend 

 the ordeal. It is requisiU. for those who have charge of 



