COCOA-GROWING COUNTRIES 353 



only stirred or raked at intervals. The sifting and cleaning is 

 proceeded with gradually without heaping up the beans by 

 pushing in front those to be cleaned, an operation which generally 

 ends with their proper and complete curing. This is recognized 

 when the beans crackle like dried walnuts and break easily under 

 the pressure of the hand or fingers, a test which must always 

 take place either soon in the morning or while the weather is 

 damp and cold. . . . The beans must never be bagged or heaped 

 up while still warm, and several hours ought to elapse before 

 bagging after the final closing of the roof. It is always safe, 

 therefore, to perform this work early in the morning, when the 

 beans are cool and not apt to sweat while in the bags. The same 

 objectionable reason to the water-flushing of the fermenting com- 

 partments applies also to the tray of a drying cacao house, which 

 ought only to be scraped dry and cleaned before claying and soon 

 after dancing. 



We have discussed in Chapter VII. the significance 

 of claying and the use of it to prevent moulding of 

 cocoa, and we pointed out that this method is practi- 

 cable and indispensable when dealing with cocoa which 

 is only slightly fermented, and the pulp of which is 

 accordingly not wholly destroyed For Venezuela 

 Criollo, and other fine Criollos which cannot stand a 

 long fermentation without deteriorating in quality, 

 claying is desirable in order to make the remaining 

 parts of the pulp dry and not subject to moulding. 



Whether claying is necessary, or even useful, in 

 Trinidad cocoa, produced from Forastero varieties, 

 which are fermented during four to nine days, seems 

 to me questionable. At any rate, cocoa of very good 

 and even superior quality comes unclayed from Trinidad, 

 dried in the ordinary way. 



Besides, we know that claying is sometimes 

 exaggerated, and that the cocoa merchants in Trinidad 

 have sometimes complained about abusive claying, 

 much cocoa being offered for sale " coated with clay." 



But still the Trinidad cocoa has on the market a 

 very good reputation, and fetches good prices. 



The exports were as follows l : 



1 Figures from 1821 till 1891 quoted from Jumelle, Le Cacaoyer ; figures from 

 1895 to 1912 from Gordian. 



2 A 



