54 COCOA 



The trading methods of the native buyers are apt 

 to be against the best interests of the industry. All 

 the native traders are more or less educated, and their 

 knowledge encourages an inborn instinct for trading 

 to make opportunities for what they consider " smart " 

 dealings. Many of them take advantage of their 

 ignorant farmer brethren by means of such tricks as can 

 be played by people who understand the working of 

 scales and are able to count and do a little mental 

 arithmetic. Most of them, despite any education they 

 may have, are too ignorant to see the folly of buying 

 any rubbish that is brought to them, and of mixing 

 good, bad and indifferent cocoa beans. 



There are three classes of native cocoa buyers: 

 Freesellers, Middlemen and Shippers. 



The Freesellers are the worst offenders. They 

 are itinerant middlemen, in a small way of business, 

 who take up a free- of- charge stand by the roadside, 

 all along the roads between the farms and the nearest 

 centre to them in which the European factories are 

 situated. They congregate, too, in some street or 

 open place near those factories; the most frequented 

 pitch is commonly known as the " cocoa market." 

 The freesellers and their scouts favour a sports style 

 of English summer costume, slop made or second 

 hand. They are good at palavering, and use other 

 means, such as the bribe of payment in silver, for 

 inducing the farmers to bid their carriers drop their 

 loads on the wayside scales. During the mile or so 

 walk into Koforidua which we take in company with 

 the procession of carriers, we see many a group fall 

 out by the way to do business with the freesellers. 



The freesellers dispose of their produce to native 

 middlemen, who, as a rule, resell to natives in a 



