162 The Fermentation of Cacao 
no planter could afford to deal with large and 
very large quantities of cacao in this manner. 
The merchant should have several different 
sweating boxes to suit the different degrees 
of dryness in the cacao purchased, and to -him 
may be recommended, even more than to the 
lanter, the advantages that vacuum drying 
ane in requiring a minimum of fuel, economy 
of time (cacao coming from the sweating boxes 
in the early morning can be bagged and 
shipped by midday), theft and wastage reduced 
to a minimum, as all operations are finished 
within four walls in a few hours. At a glance 
it is obvious that the merchant can consider- 
ably reduce the capital employed on ‘cacao 
account” by owning a vacuum dryer; also, 
he can reduce his risk of the market going 
against him by.two or three weeks. In fact, 
it would revolutionize the business ; profit and 
loss on this account could be estimated at any 
moment, and revision of buying prices made 
to suit the cabled market reports. A machine- 
driven cacao polisher should also be included 
in the equipment ; it effects within half an hour, 
at a cost of a penny or two, the value of a day’s 
work for two men, and should certainly increase 
the value of a merchant’s cacao by Is. to 2s. 
per cwt. It is time, therefore, that the cacao 
merchants abandoned primitive methods and 
came abreast. of the times by adopting one 
or other of the various time, labour and ‘money- 
saving appliances now on the market. 
