53 



sought and combined are, availability of water power, both 

 to drive the machinery and for a water-course to the pulper, 

 on a site convenient to the fields from which the crop is to 

 be brought, and so level that it may be fitted for its purposes 

 at the least possible expense. 



Water power is not always used, nor is it available on 

 every estate ; but as there may be often good reasons to adopt 

 it afterwards, it should always be considered in the primary 

 arrangements. It may be applied to so many economic ob- 

 jects saw-mills, drying apparatus, &c. that it should always 

 be applied, if possible, to everything undertaken on the estate 

 requiring a moving power. 



Plate 6 is an exterior view of a pulping-house on Messrs. 

 Worms' estates, Puselawa. 



Coffee when gathered from the tree fully ripe is like a rich 

 scarlet cherry, out of which on being squeezed two coffee- 

 berries break forth, each covered with a light skin resembling 

 parchment, and moist, with a sweet mucilaginous fluid which 

 rapidly decomposes. The machine called a pulper is for the 

 purpose of removing the cherry skin or husk ; this it does by 

 passing it between a barrel armed with perforated copper, 

 forming a grater, and a sharp-edged board called the chop, 

 which by means of wedges or screws is placed at the proper 

 distance from the barrel to ensure the greater part of the 

 coffee being pressed against it, but not so close that any of 

 the berries should be pricked through their parchment cover- 

 ing. As coffee is seldom uniform in size, much passes forward 

 from which the husk, or pulp, as it is called, has not been 

 completely removed ; this, being separated by a sieve worked 

 by the machinery, is returned by hand to the hopper. The 

 coffee, deprived of its husk, goes forward by a channel pre- 

 pared for it into a cistern, the pulps being thrown off behind ; 

 these latter are now generally saved to be carried to the 

 manure pit. The coffee is left to soak in*the cistern for the 



