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■and sweated, and therefore only worth 70s. per cwt. in the London 

 Market. A properly cured small settlers' sample from St. Mary, 

 worth 72s. or 73s. was also shown ; and a sample of the best quality, 

 worth 78s. The evaporation process, he explained, was hardly practi- 

 cable for small settlers unless by co-operation. The man who cured 

 his cocoa properly not only got a better price than the man who did 

 it badly, but actually got more weight from the same number of beans 

 because some of the mucilage dried on to the bean. 



There was such a thing, the lecturer proceeded, as a product being 

 absolutely valueless if it was a little " off" in quality and yet fetching 

 a fair price if it was well prepared. This was the case with anatta. 

 This product grew wild in Jamaica and yet had a very small market. 

 It was used for colouring butter and cheese, but chemical substances 

 had been discovered which did this, and so anatta had gone to the 

 wall to a large extent and poor anatta was quite unsaleable — nobody 

 would have it as a gift. Yet good anatta could still be sold. If 

 good anatta could be sold at a high price, there would be some room 

 for the poorer quality at a low price, but the good being down, the 

 bad was nowhere. Eight or nine shillings a hundred weight could be 

 got for the good article to-day. The cause of the difference in 

 the quality was simply improper curing Anatta should not be 

 cured in the sun, but in a shady place with plenty of draught. 

 It would thus dry properly without losing any of the colouring matter 

 through evaporation by the sun's rays Good anatta was moist after 

 curing and could be squeezed up in a ball in the fingers. The bad 

 quality lost its fine red colouring and went dark. A mark of all pro- 

 perly cured produce was that it never got hot or fermented in the bag. 

 He had taken up the question of anatta simply to impress upon his 

 hearers the great commercial truth that even with the very worst con- 

 dition of the market there was some demand for the good article, but 

 there was no hope for the bad. 



Turning to pimento, the lecturer remarked that it was a gift of God 

 to the Island. Practically speaking, we had it to ourselves ; we did 

 not have to grow it, and the least we cmld do was to send it to mar- 

 ket in a fit condition. After it was picked it should go through a 

 process of sweating. It should be heaped and covered with plantain 

 leaves or banana thrash, which would help to protect it from the rain. 

 Great care should be taken that it did not get wet. After the sweat- 

 ing process, it should be placed on thoroughly clean barbecues to dry. 

 At this stage its colour should be a sort of reddish brown, if it had 

 been properly sweated. Care should be taken that it was thorougnly 

 dry before it was put up, and it should be fanned. Every man, per- 

 haps, could not buy a fan, but here again co-operation could come in 

 usefully. The difference in price for one crop would pay for the faa, 

 which he believed only cost £5 or £6. Imperfectly cured pimento 

 would ferment and get hot in the bag, and lose enormously in weight. 

 A man might buy 100 lbs. and in a few days find the weight drop to 

 85. How could they expect a merchant to give a good price when he 

 was buying a pig in a poke of this kind ? Well-cured pimento, on 

 the other hand, only lost slightly in weight in shipment. In regard 

 to sweating, a great deal depended on conditions and apparatus. Care 

 must be taken, as with cocoa, to sweat all parts of the heap equally. 



