1 9 2 Coffee Planting. 



Thereafter appeared in the field Mr. Butler, an old 

 West Indian planter, who had been a few years 

 on a coffee estate in this country, and Mr. John 

 Gordon, of 3, Railway Place, Fenchurch Street, 

 London, formerly Affleck and Gordon, Engineers, 

 Kandy ; and these are at present the chief rival 

 competitors for fame and fortune. Mr. Butler's is 

 a double cylinder covered with grooved brass of 

 apparently a very simple construction, and which, 

 with coffee of a uniform size, is said to work well, 

 and do its work with little damage. But where the 

 coffee is green, or black, or unequal, it crushes or 

 peels. These are the objections we heard urged 

 against it last year in many quarters ; and we 

 found that several of our friends, ere their crop 

 was half through, had discarded this machine and 

 resumed the old common pulper. This year we 

 have heard it is working better, and that all those 

 set up by Mr. Butler in person did well. Doubt- 

 less, like every other new invention, experience 

 has enabled its patentee to remedy defects and 

 improve on the primitive model. It is to be 

 regretted that poor Mr. Butler died, just at the 

 time that prospects for a career of usefulness and 

 profit were open before him. His former sup- 

 porters, we understand, are to carry on the business ; 

 but they will have considerably to reduce the 

 charge for one of those machines before they will 



