Up-to-date 

 method of 

 Grading. 



02 The Cultivation and Preparation of Coffee 



The ' ' Britannia ' ' Grader is a special 

 machine that classifies the coffee into the fol- 

 lowing grades : Dust and shells, " Triage," 

 thirds (flats), seconds (flats), firsts (by their 

 thickness and by their width), and two grades 

 of peaberries. 



By classifying the coffee in this manner 

 from 50 to 60 per cent, of firsts can be obtained, 

 against 25 to 30 per cent, by the old method. 

 Therefore, taking as an average that the 

 difference in price between the firsts and 

 seconds is four shillings per hundredweight, a 

 plantation of 300 acres yielding 105 tons* of 

 marketable coffee would produce an additional 

 25 per cent, of firsts that is, 525 cwts. which 

 at the price of four shillings per hundredweight 

 means an increase in value of ^6105, which 

 would more than pay for the grader to which I 

 refer. 



The above example simply refers to the 

 classification of the coffee by its width and 

 thickness, since I have already mentioned that 

 up to the present there is not a machine that, 

 by itself, will grade the coffee by the three 

 dimensions indicated. However, there is a 

 subsidiary machine for the purpose of separat- 



* As it will be noticed this is only taking at the rate of 7 cwts. per 

 acre, which can be considered as a very safe average for estimating. 



