1 66 The Fermentation of Cacao 



increased cost of transport, and loss of valu- 

 able time and labour in the drying house in 

 " cleaning " the cacao. 



SEPARATION OF QUALITIES IN THE FIELD. 



In the economical working of an estate it 

 has not been found profitable to separate the 

 one or two unripe pods and the small propor- 

 tion of more or less " brown" or " black rot" 

 pods from the general "sweating box"; yet 

 one cannot but see that a "counsel of perfec- 

 tion " would demand this sacrifice. There can 

 be no doubt, however, as to the propriety of 

 separating rat-eaten collections of seeds from 

 the general bulk. 



Criollo or Pentagona types cannot be profit- 

 ably fermented together with coarser qualities, 

 the former requiring only three to four days in 

 the fermenting- box, and the latter five to eight 



o o 



clays : apart from this difficulty no one possess- 

 ing any modicum of common sense would mix 

 high-class cacao with an ordinary estate lot, 

 thus reducing the value of the better seed by 

 perhaps 50 per cent. Separation of these 

 varieties should occur at planting time, or fail- 

 ing this in the pod heaps before " breaking." 



MEASURING "WET" CACAO. 



For three reasons it is necessary to ascertain 

 the weight and volume of the cacao as it is 

 placed in the "sweating" boxes, viz. : (i) To 

 ascertain the annual yield from each particular 



