2 



COFFEE. 



A Short Treatise on Coffee Planting, by W, A: Sabonadiere, (continued). 



Buildings. 



In Jamaica, Buildings, or Works, as they are called, appear to me too small in most instances for 

 the proper carrying ont of the work to be accomplished within them. On some old properties they are 

 most substantially built, and are all closed in with windows like a house. In Ceylon, except at the first 

 when very large, massive, expensive Buildings were put up, the style is very different and less costly. 

 My idea of a store and pulping house is as follows for a property of 150 to 200 acres. 



Store. 



About 120 to 150 feet long, 25 feet broad, built on stone pillars about 10 feet apart, with three 

 floors, the lowest cemented, the two upper to be laid on strong beams and joists, with a flooring of 

 laths laid down about 1\ inches apart, to be carpeted over with coir matting, so that the air can 

 pass through the coffee and permit of its being heuped two or three feet deep ; cleanliness is also 

 another item in favor of coir matting, as compared to ordinary boards. The lower story should be 

 well enclosed and have plenty of windows for light, so that it may be used as a picking room for pre- 

 paration for market ; and also for keeping the trash coffee bags, baskets, and other articles required in 

 a coffee store. Between the pillars weather boarding should be used, with here and there a jalousie 

 to admit the air; and at the ends of each floor there should be large windows to admit plenty of light. 

 A free current of air cannot be injurious to parchment coffee that is sufficiently dried, as long as 

 wet is excluded, and by turning over the coffee morning and evening it can be kept quite sweet and 

 cool even when heaped two or three feet deep. 



Pulping House. 



A pulping house should have a solid paved platform on which to stand the pulper, below it there 

 should be three long cisterns (or tanks) longer than they are broad, so that the coffee can not only be 

 pulped into them, but also be used for washing. Below these again there should be a smaller narrow 

 cistern with a perforated iron, or strong wire flooring to catch the skins and trash, so that no bean or 

 berry worth keeping should escape ; the tanks should be on a gentle slope downwards. The floor 

 above the pulping house, should rest on very strong supports, and have suitable beams and joists, so- 

 as to bear a very heavy weight, cherry being always very heavy. For smaller estates these arrange- 

 ments could be made on a moderate scale. My work on Coffee Planting enters more fully into details. 



Machinery. 



As to Machinery, there is no doubt that Messrs. John Walker & Co.'s Cylinder Pulpers, with 

 self-feeding buckets and circular siene, are as yet the very best and most simple improvement on the 

 old "rattletrap" pulper of Laborie's time still so universally used in Jamaica. There are also 

 smaller hand cylinder pulpers made suitable for settlers. Another of Walker's inventions is the 

 " Disc" Pulper, and there is also "Gordon's" Breast Pulper, these act and work splendidly so long 

 as the coffee is medium size, even and fully ripe, but like most patented articles the least thing that 

 goes wrong with them upsets the whole affair, and they do no end of damage. Now, settlers are not 

 noted for picking their coffee well ripe, so it would certainly be better for them to stick to the old 

 machine, as improved upon in Ceylon. 



Curing Machinery. 



A wheel to drive the pulper, the mill and the sizing machine, where plenty of water is available, 

 or a large tank can be frequently replenished, is far preferable to mule, or manual power, the wheel 

 should be so placed as to serve both the pulping house and the milling room. As to winnowers, the 

 old kind answer very well, and as regards sizing machines, I am told by old planters, they prefer the 

 original ones to any new kind lately imported. 



Gathering Crop. 



It is always best to pick the coffee when it is fully ripe, but iu Jamaiea this does not seem to pre- 

 vail : it may be that planters and settlers are anxious to save as much of their coffee as possible from 

 the attacks of birds and rats, which I begin to believe, do much more to reduce our in-gatherings than 

 is supposed. The mongoose has without doubt been a good friend to the planters, but he is getting 

 dainty, and does not consume as many rats as of yore, if he would but kill them we should be content. 

 The pickers on a well ordered estate should pick in rows, and begin at the top of each field and work 

 downwards, so that any coffee dropped would roll forward, and be more easily picked up. Picking 

 gangs should be well supervised, the trick in planter parlance termed " fly picking" should be entirely 

 interdicted, any defaulters should be severely punished. When practicable there should be a galva- 

 nized iron shoot (five inches in diameter) erected from the top fields, to shoot the coffee direct into the 

 pulping house, so as to save the labourers the long and heavy carriage. 



Pulping and Curing. 



Walker's Pulpers will accomplish a tierce, (say 40 tubs) an hour when properly set and driven 

 and the coffee is in good condition ; there should be a suitably deep box, or iron tank, resting on the 

 pulper, called the "feeding box," to receive the coffee from the cherry loft, before it flows over between 

 the chops ; this is meant to catch stones, nails, or any injurious articles that might either maliciously 

 or accidentally find their way amongst the cherries. After the coffee is pulped, the water must be 

 allowed to run off, and it should be left two nights in the cistern to ferment off the gummy matter; 

 coffee pulped on Monday is usually fit to be washed on Wednesday morning. In washing as much as 

 possible of the skins and trash as have passed through the sieve should be taken out, so that the parch- 



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