Mr. George S. Hudson 165 
for the brokers to attribute this flatness to 
unripeness, yet I am convinced they are almost 
entirely wrong in their diagnosis. Many ex- 
aminations of the heaps of cacao pods in the 
fields have convinced me that these, as a rule, 
on .a well-conducted estate, do not contain 
more than 1 to 2 per cent. of unripe cacao, and 
further it can be ascertained that this extreme 
flatness and solid fracture is a characteristic of 
the lowest type of Calabacillo cacao, and is not 
to be found associated even with the unripe 
beans of higher types. It will therefore only 
be just for cacao brokers, buyers and manufac- 
turers to absolve the planter from this particular 
sin of picking unripe cacao—for although it is 
impossible to always avoid picking an unripe 
pod, yet even the most ignorant peasant knows. 
that such a practice is undesirable—and in 
future to attribute this undesirable quality to 
the fact of the beans having been picked from 
a Calabacillo type of tree. 
REMOVAL OF THE PLACENTA IN TIIE FIELD. 
I would emphasize the desirability of making 
the cacao carriers or basket fillers free the seed 
entirely from the ‘fibrous heart” or “ placenta,” 
a proportion of which is too often carried in 
with the cacao. Where a rotary or vacuum 
dryer is in use this becomes almost essential 
to economical work, and a little drastic super- 
vision and fines at the outset soon accomplish 
this object. Failure to observe this involves 
