70 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



be, were the demand regular and consistent, is self-evident. 

 We want population to eat our produce, and then there 

 will be no complaint. 



In the case of coffee a plentiful supply of cheap labour 

 is essential to success. Those who by judicious treatment 

 of the aboriginals command their services have so far made 

 profit. A coffee plantation suggests pleasant, picturesque 

 and spicy things. The orderly lines of the plants, in glossy 

 green adorned for a brief space with white, frail, fugitive 

 flowers distilling a deliciously sweet and grateful odour, 

 the branches crowded with gleaming berries, green, pink 

 and red, present pleasing aspect. As a change to the 

 scenery of the jungle, a coffee estate has a garden-like 

 relief. But picking berry by berry is slow and monotonous 

 work, vexatious, too, to those mortals whose skin is sensitive 

 to the attacks of green ants. Then comes the various 

 processes of the removal of the pulp, first by machinery, 

 finally by the fermentation of the still adhering slimy 

 residuum ; then the drying and saving by exposure to the 

 sun on trays or on tarpaulins until all moisture is expelled ; 

 and the hulling which disintegrates the parchment from 

 the twin berries ; then winnowing, and finally the polishing. 

 Do drinkers of the fragrant and exhilarating beverage 

 realise the amount of labour and care involved before the 

 crop is taken off and preserved from deterioration and 

 decay? A few berries that may have become mildewed 

 during the slow, tedious and anxious process of drying in 

 the sun, may violate the delicate flavour and aroma which 

 the grower has been at pains to secure and fix. In coffee 

 it is as with many other features of rural life in Australia. 

 The men who undertake the production are for the most 

 part those who have gained their knowledge by personal 

 experience on the spot. Reading and the advice of 

 experts who have graduated in countries where climatic 

 conditions are diverse and where the labour is cheap, yet 

 skilled by reason of generation after generation of occupa- 

 tion in it, do riot complete necessary knowledge. Problems 

 have to be faced that have no theoretical nor official 



