CTJLTIVATION IN CEYLOIT. 99 



"Unless 1881 gives a really good coffee crop all over the coun- 

 try, the average for the next quinquennial period ending vdth 

 that year must show a further marked decrease." 



In Ceylon the principal crop is picked from April to July ; 

 but there is also a small crop, chiefly from the young plants, 

 gathered from September to December. The yield varies from 

 2 cwts. to 12 cwts. per acre. Some estates show an average 

 yield of from 9^ cwts. to lli^ cwts. per acre for a term of 

 years. It requires fully 3 cwts. of coffee per acre annually to 

 cover the cost of cultivation. 



Of the different processes necessary to prepare the bean for 

 market, that of removing the outer rind, or of " pulping," as it is 

 called, is the only one performed on the plantation. The " West- 

 India process " is the method employed in Ceylon. A description 

 of this method will be found in Chapter TV. 



The berries pass from the pulper into a cistern filled with 

 water. There they are allowed to soak for about twelve hours, 

 a slight fermentation setting in and decomposing the sticky fluid, 

 or mucilage, which adheres to the parchment skin. The berries 

 are then washed clean and spread on large drying-grounds, called 

 barbecues, to dry. When this is accomplished, the planter has 

 done his part, and the coffee is sent " in parchment " — that is to 

 say, in the dry, tough skin enveloping the bean — to the shipping 

 ports, where the subsequent operations of " peeling," " garbling," 

 " sizing," and packing for export, a more detailed description of 

 which is given further on, are completed. The reason for this is 

 that each plantation could not weU afford the expensive machinery 

 used for these processes ; and also that labor is much cheaper 

 on the coast than in the interior, the laborers being nearly all 

 "Tamils" imported from the Coromandel Coast of India. The 

 Sinhalese, as a rule, will have nothing to do with the work 



Colombo, as is well known, is the chief port of export, and a 

 railroad, eighty miles long, has been opened to the interior, almost 

 solely for the purpose of transporting coffee and the fertilizers 

 which its cultivation requires. On the arrival of the coffee in 

 Colombo, it is taken to the coffee " mills," as they are there 

 called, spread out on the drying-grounds in the sun, and thor- 

 oughly dried ; it is then put into the " peeler " (for illustration, 



