134 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[August i, 1884. 



the cuisine to determine the precise period at which the 

 nuts are sufficiently roasted, for very much depends upon 

 this point. A miscalculation in time, of course, would 

 tend to spoil the flavour of the nibs, not to speak of 

 burning them and so ruin them altogether ; but it was 

 satisfactory for me to learn from the foreman that mis- 

 haps rarely happen, for so practised are the hands re- 

 sponsible for the roasting that the work is, as a rule, 

 admirably done, and the flavour of the nut invariably pre- 

 served. In connection with this process methods of 

 treatment peculiar to the establishment are successively 

 adopted. After being roasted the nuts are placed 

 in trays of considerable superficial dimensions to 

 cool. The fresh air speedily reduces the temperature 

 of the cocoa beans, and they are then ready to be 

 what is technically termed " broken down." The now 

 crisp, roasted nuts are placed in a hopper, and afterwards 

 raised by an elevator and passed through a machine which 

 gently cracks them, disengaging the hard thin skin, which 

 by this means can be separated from the nutritive portion 

 of the nut — that is, the rich, glossy kernel known in the 

 market as "cocoa nibs." The separation is effected by a 

 winnowing machine. From the outlet of the cracking- 

 machine the husk and nut are carried to a point over 

 the " winnower," and as the cracked nut falls into its 

 allotted receptacle below a powerful blast of cold air from 

 the lungs of this machine blows away the shelly parts 

 into an upper divisiou of the same receptacle. 



Touching these shelly particles, I have an " exshellent " 

 joke to make, for I may mention confidentially, en passant, 

 that I think I have discovered the nucleus of a secret 

 which will probably be considered by Mr. Parnell and the 

 Home Rule party as another grievance sustained by the 

 natives of the Emerald Isle at the hands of their per- 

 fidious Saxon oppressors. I was told in the strictest sec- 

 recy that the cocoa husks are shipped to Ireland, where 

 they are " used as a light but by no means unpalatable 

 decoction, like weak tea, and sold under the designation 

 of 'miserable* 7 ' — save the mark ! What will Mr. Parnell 

 say to this? 



To proceed, however, with my description. After the nuts 

 are broken and winnowed they are next taken to the 

 grinding room, where a series of revolving mill-stones 

 speedily resolve them into a thick brown fluid. From 

 this liquid paste the oil is extracted — and there is some 

 50 per cent of vegetable fat in the nuts — by means of a 

 certain process, a specialite of the firm which it would 

 be injudicious to reveal ; and then the substance, without 

 the admixture of a single foreign element, but pure as 

 it came origiually from the tree, with the exception of 

 being deprived of its fat, having ''done Banting," so to 

 speak, is known as " Cadbury's Cocoa Essence," celebrated 

 for its purity and nourishing properties all the world over, 

 an essence which indeed has gained " The Cocoa King " his 

 title, and the little town on the banks of the Bourn its local 

 habitation and name. The cocoa essence having been re- 

 duced to a very fine powder, not all unlike a detonating 

 composition known as fulminite, is then weighed and 

 packed automatically in the well-known packages familiar 

 to all cocoa consumers, by an ingenious American machine 

 which contrives to measure and put up some 20,000 parcels 

 of this theobromine — or ''food of the gods,' 1 as Linnseus 

 christened it — per diem. The vegetable fat or " cocoa 

 butter," as it is technically termed, extracted from crushed 

 nib, is sold in large quantities to the wholesale chemists, 

 by whom it is so " transmogrified " that it enters into a 

 dozen uses which one would never suspect. Joking aside, 

 however, cocoa fat has valuable healing and soothing pro- 

 perties that render it invaluable as an ointment, as which 

 it indeed is in great vogue in the West Indies, and on the 

 Spanish Slain, as I well recollect. 



The next article of Messrs. Cadbury's manufacture, and 

 one almost as important as that of their cocoa essence, 

 is the Mexican and other sweet chocolate f or bonbonnieres 

 and other dainty uses too numerous to be specified. The 

 pure cocoa is in the first place incorporated with the best 

 white sugar in a machine called a melanguer or mixer, where 

 heavy granite rollers like millstones set on end, and a 

 double-bladed knife acting as a screw propeller, thoroughly 

 incorporate the substances into each other, after which 

 it is flavoured with vanilla. The "Chocolate," as the material 

 is now called, is then run into moulds, and cooled on stone 

 blabs in a cellar, whose temperature more approaches to 



the freezing point than any other part of the establish- 

 ment I visited. 



After seeing chocolate thus " put through its fac^s," 

 in slang phrase, I was ushered into the cream mouhuog 

 room, where bonbons are manufactured apparently in quant- 

 ities enough to fill all the bonbonnieres of the juvenile 

 world. The place seemed, really, more like a mill — that 

 is, a flour-mill — than a chocolate turn-out, for everything 

 here — the floor, the ceiling, and all surroundings — was 

 covered with a white efflorescent deposit, while pulverized 

 particles of similar substance permeated the very air and 

 every nook and cranny in the place. As for the girls 

 working here, they were like so many pretty little mill- 

 princesses, and seemed to perform their task pi manufac- 

 turing those delicious chocolate creams, which some of us 

 with a sweet tooth wot of, with a skilful expeituess which 

 constant practice in filling the tiny moulds could only 

 teach. They manage to (ill each mould with just sufficient 

 of the cream and no more, thereby preventing waste of 

 time if not of materials. Hardly is this done than the 

 " creams " solidify, and when cooled they are taken to an- 

 ther department and coated with chocolate, whereupon 

 all that has to be done is to eat them! 



To turn to another industry in full work in this manu- 

 factory, and one almost rivalliug the production of the 

 cocoa essence, chocolate, and bonbons, one must imagine 

 a change of avocation, and go in for carpentering, paper- 

 hanging, and tinsrnithery. 



Of course thousands upon thousands — nay, millions, of 

 millboard boxes to contain cocoa essence, in addition to 

 fancy cardboard boxes and other dainty devices for hold- 

 ing the various chocolate confections, have to be made 

 in the year, and much ingenuity is displayed in their 

 manufacture ; tbe demand being so enormous for their 

 cocoa essence that the firm lad to employ elaborately con- 

 structed machinery to suit the requirements, one handy 

 aid to labour cutting the card into the required shape, 

 while a carefully devised appliance, not unlike an envelop- 

 folding machine, glues the parts together and perfects the 

 packet shell, the " output " of these two silent mechan- 

 ical workers being some 12,000 each daily. Other machines 

 are also employed to make the tin boxes for the outer 

 casing of the essence, one especially cutting out the box- 

 shape from the sheet tin, forming the top and bottom, 

 bending the sides together, and stamping the whole into 

 a complete form, without any solder or other annealing 

 substance, in the most wonderful way. Of all the depart- 

 ments of the factory, the girls' " general room," where 

 the various arts of box-making, fitting and packing were 

 principally carried on, seemed to be the busiest ; but per- 

 haps this was from the fact of so ninny being grouped 

 together in it, the apartment being at least two hundred 

 and fifty feet long by sixty in breadth. Some hundreds 

 ol girls were here engaged folding, gumming, labelling, 

 and otherwise constructing the fancy boxes to contain the 

 chocolate and chocolate creams, whose manipulation and 

 mode of manufacture have been thoroughly described ; and 

 it ajipeared really that the firm think it necessary that 

 not only must the sense of taste be gratified by the 

 manufacture of toothsome compounds, but the eye must 

 be pleased as well ; for many, indeed most, of the varieties 

 of fancy boxes made in this room were admirable examples 

 of art woikmanship, the designs and pictures on some ol 

 the best 1 ling beyond praise ; while in the vast assortment 

 of decorative embellishment the most ewiffeant tasu j coidd 

 not fail tube gratified. Cutting out paper and cardboard, 

 filling, 1 luing, glueing, packing, and stamping together, 

 the busy girls get through their work a merveille and when 

 they had perfected and turned out some little ekef <V 

 anevre, it was beautiful to notice its finish and complete- 

 ness. 



I may state, in now concluding this brief account of 

 my peregrinations round this intrresting factory, that most 

 certainly Bourinille is one of the wonders of'Birming- 

 ham, and my friend, I think, made no error and com- 

 mitted no lapsvs linyuce when he styled Mr. Cadbury 

 " The Cocoa King." 



Lice in Hens 1 Nests.- — Sprinkle the nest with a solution 

 of carbolic acid. Bare soil is better than any material for 

 nests. It is said that if a groove is made in a hen roost 

 and filled with a mixture of lard and sulphur, the fowls 

 will not be troubled with lice. — Leader* 



