54 CULTIVATION OF COFFEE IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES. 



necessary to sprinkle water over the cherry, and to let it 

 soak for some hours to make it pnlpable; since if passed 

 through the pulpers in a dry state, it would be much cut 

 and damaged. 



Amongst other items to be observed in the culture of coffee, 

 the following are of important and practical value. The fruit 

 should be gathered in when resembling ripe cherries ; it should 

 then be measured and thrown into a loft above the pulper in a 

 heap. It should be submitted to the first process of machinery, 

 the pulper, within twenty-four hours after, if not immediately. 

 The pulped berries may remain a day and a night, for the 

 process of fermentation; the mucilaginous matter is to be 

 then washed off. In an hour or so the coffee may then 

 be removed for curing : it is there spread out thinly and 

 exposed to the sun, which will in eight or nine hours 

 absorb all the w r ater, and leave the coffee fit for housing. 

 When coffee is perfectly cured which is generally ascer- 

 tained by threshing out a few berries in one's hands, and 

 seeing if it has attained its horny blue color it is then 

 fit for milling, which is the second process it has to undergo 

 by machinery. Here the parchment and silver skins are 

 dislodged from the berry, by means of the friction of a 

 large roller passing over the produce in a wooden trough. 

 It is then submitted to the fanner or winnowing machine, 

 and the coffee passed through two or three sieves, when 

 it comes away perfectly clean, and thus, being sized, hand- 

 picked, and packed, it is forwarded by mules or railroad 

 to market. 



A recent eastern traveller, Bickmore, informs us that 

 in the large wooden storehouses where the coffee is received 

 from the interior, and kept for exportation, the rich aromatic 

 fragrance given out by the berry differs much more than 

 any one would believe from the ordinary fragrance to 



