COFFEE PLANTERS’ MANUAL, 45. 
Cistern. 1 shall describe one of each. 
Tue RECEIVING CISTERN may be 10 or 12 feet square 
or larger or sinaller according to the requirements of 
crop. But say 10 feet square by 24 fect high as a 
medium size. Into it goes the coffee fresh from the 
pulper. Divested of the skin a gummy substance 
adheres to the parchment, rendering it difficult to 
wash till fermentation has set in, liberating this gum 
from the bean. It is left therefore in the heap in the 
receiving cistern for a night on a low estate, while 
it takes two nights on a high one to fit it for wash- 
ing clean. The washing process therefore begins on 
the first or second day after being pulped. But for 
this purpose the then fermented coffee is drawn into 
the washing cistern through a door which communi- 
cates between the two. 
THE WASHING CISTERN may be assumed as of the 
same size as the receiving one. There the coffee is 
first trampled for a while by men’s feet to loosen the 
gum, then drawn up in a heap at one end, cleaw 
water is run in from above by a spout, the coffee is 
dragged about by a sort of blind-rake called a mata- 
palaka, and is made to undergo two or three waters 
till quite clean, all the gummy water having been 
allowed to run off. This, when utilized, makes a very 
good addition to a dung-pit; but very few’planters 
take the trouble of turning it thus to account. I 
have seen it added to a pit filled with mana grass 
compost with great effect. 
THE Tait CISTERN is a small cistern, of say the 
same length and half the breadth as the others, into 
which the light coffee which floats on the surface at. 
the time of washing is drawn. ‘There it is washed 
and kept separate from the heavy coffee. When pro- 
perly washed, the coffee is spread out on a barbacue 
or levelled space, adjoining the store and pulping- 
house, which buildings if not contiguous should always 
be near each other, so as to diminish the labor of 
carrying the wet coffee from the pulping-house, and: 
the dry coffee into the store. 
THE BaRBACUE is a levelled piece of ground adjoin- 
ing the store. When properly made, it is covered 
with from six inches to a foot of broken metal, well 
pounded down, covered again with sand to fill the 
interstices, then coated over with chunam or lime, 
and polished on the surface, or it may be tarred on 
the surface, or it may be laid with brick and tarred ; 
or with large flat stones, or chunamed or tarred. 
Many planters are satisfied however with just a ley- 
elled space of ground pounded down to make an even 
surface. In this case mats must be spread out to. 
keep the coffee clean and free from contact with the 
