JUTECID, (ONGTE EIR IG IAI GAY 27 
imately 300 pounds of coffee berries. In many plantations different units are employed, 
in some gathering being paid for at so much per tin or can, this measure being the five- 
gallon gasoline or petroleum can found everywhere throughout the tropics. In still others 
the fifty-gallon barrel is used as a unit, while in others special boxes are prepared con- 
taining from one to two bags, and the pickers are paid per box of measured berries brought 
in by them. In the case of picking by the bag, the price paid is usually from $1.40 to 
$1.50 for the first picking, at which only a limited number of berries has ripened, this 
price being reduced to $1.00 for each of the second and third pickings, at which a much 
larger percentage of the total crop is brought in. Over each group of pickers is a super- 
intendent, and these receive under normal conditions $40.00 to $45.00 per month and 
board. Field hands for cultivation, topping and other work of a similar character are 
usually obtainable under normal conditions at $1.00 to $1.25 per day, this being the rate 
of wage now being paid in Oriente Province. 
The reader will now know that the coffee as brought in from the bushes is in reality 
a fruit about the size of a small cherry, inside of which are found the seeds which compose 
the coffee as we know it. In order to prepare this for the market, various steps have to be 
taken, and several processes are in use. In Cuba, however, the prevailing custom is to 
dry the coffee berries on large, open cement or board platforms, where the berries in thin 
layers are exposed to the rays of the hot tropical sun. Provision is always made for rapid 
covering or gathering up and sheltering against the showers which at the harvest period 
occur so frequently. After drying the berries are then placed in bags and are delivered to 
preparing plants where by means of machinery first the dried pulp is removed from the 
seed, then the parchment-like covering is taken off, after which the seeds are polished by 
friction between themselves and the wheels of the machine used for this purpose. In some 
cases the seed is given an artificial coloring, for the purpose of making this uniform, but 
this custom is not general in Cuba. After the parchment has been removed the seed is 
then in condition to be classified. This is done in the majority of cases and in the better 
plants by passing the seed through a long inclined, sieve-like tube, the spaces between the 
wires composing its outer surface increasing regularly as the distance from the mouth 
through which the coffee enters the tube increases. Thus only the smaller and broken 
seeds drop out between the wires of the first division of this apparatus, the next larger seed 
passing through the following division, and so on until through the final subdivision of the 
apparatus pass only the fully developed, perfectly formed and largest seeds. This, of 
course, is classed as the highest grade. In the ordinarily commercial practice in Cuba 
only three grades are removed, these being called, first, second and the leavings, and in the 
practice of classification by the producers themselves, only two grades are separated, these 
being, first and second classes. An exception, however, to this must be mentioned, in 
that in all coffee groves there is produced a small percentage of what are in reality imper- 
feet berries, in which is found only one seed. This instead of having one flat side is 
rounded, somewhat like a rather elongated pea. Through some unknown cause, coffee 
seed of this nature has come to be considered as of better quality and, therefore, greater 
value than the flat sided coffee of the perfect and normal berry. In Cuba this round 
grain is known as ‘‘café caracolillo,” and we believe that this term is also used to designate 
this character of coffee in commerce. For a long time the separation of this grade was 
done by manual labor, but an apparatus has been perfected by which it can be removed by 
machinery, thus facilitating greatly this process. Though the percentage of coffee of this 
character in the total crop is relatively small, the higher value of $3.00 or $4.00 per one 
hundred pounds makes its separation profitable. 
By the plan of classification just indicated—that governed by the diameter and size of 
coffee beans—it is evident that no separation of quality or color is possible. Thus the 
unripe, undeveloped bean that has escaped the breaking action of the machinery through 
which it has passed, passes through the same subdivision of the classifier as does the 
thoroughly ripened bean of the same size. The result is, therefore, that the quality of the 
coffee thus treated is lower than that treated by other processes in which classification of 
the berries themselves is perfected. In one of these processes, a plant for the operation of 
