Mr. George S. Hudson 201 
Rotary Cacao Dryer is a machine that has 
lately been put on the market and promises 
good results. It is extremely difficult for 
the planter to become conversant with the 
advantages and defects of new machinery of 
this kind, unless individual planters take the 
risk of ordering some of these promising, 
but untried inventions. As an instance, the 
Gordon machines have been on sale for twenty» 
years, but it is only within the past five years 
that they have become appreciated in the West 
Indies. The work of testing new inventions 
of this kind should be taken up by the 
agricultural bodies for the guidance of the 
agricultural community, as it is hardly fair to 
individual inventors, makers or planters, to 
leave them to bear the cost of experimental 
work whereby all benefit, if only by ascertain- 
ing that the machine cannot be used with 
advantage. ; 
Vacuum Cacao Drvers. 
I am strongly of opinion that the ease, 
economy and certainty of drying cacao zx 
vacuo will eventually cause it to supersede 
all other methods on estates producing 100 
bags or more annually. In West Indian 
central sugar factories no other method of 
boiling sugar but in vacuum pans has been 
entertained for the past forty years; and 
although many of these factories cannot afford 
highly paid engineers, yet the difficulty of 
