THE 
AGRICULTURAL mAGAZIllG, 
COLOMBO- 
Added as a Stipplevient Monthly to the " TROPICAL AGlilCULTUBIST." 
May :- 
The following pages include the Contents of the Agricultural Magazine for 
Vol. XIL] 
MAY, 1901. 
[No. 11. 
A NEW INDUSTRY FOR CEYLON. 
HE output of Cactio in Ceylon is 
not very considerable ; in 1900 
the quantity exportedw as be- 
tween 1,600 and 1,700 tons. But 
as regards quality of produce and 
market value Ceylon cacao, as the 
Americans would say, is always 'on top.' That 
only a very small proportion of Ceylon cacao 
duce is used in the manufacture of the prepared 
article can be easily proved by figures and it is there- 
fore clear that a great deal of inferior cacao must- 
enter into the composition of the preparations placed 
upon the market. But it is an open secret that 
a good many other ingredients assist in the pro- 
duction of the different brands of cacao powder and 
chocolate in their various forms, so that the con' 
Crete results of manufacture, as carried on on the 
Continent, are as a rule highly complex mixtures 
wherein the art lies in the mixing, and the per- 
fection of that art in the concealment of the fact 
that anything but pure cacao (sweetened it may be 
with sugar) is used. 
When the taste has been vitiated it is no easy 
matter to educate it to an appreciation of excellence 
or purity. Coffee, another of our trojical products, 
has been 'the object of approved adulteration, and 
a mixture of coffee with chicory was for a long time 
more highly appreciated than the pure article. But 
economical householders may be trusted to re- 
cognise before long what is a very clear fact, viz., 
that it will be cheaper for them to do their own 
adulteration, and that ;f there are virtues in th® 
addition of starch to cacao powder (which is 
problematical) they can make the additions more 
economically themselves ; while the chemist and 
the family physician may be trusted to complete 
the victory for the manufacturer of the pure article 
by reconciling the consumer to the sliglit natural 
bitterness of the cacao bean and the true " cho- 
colate colour " which the mixer by his arts has 
converted into a " burnt sienna." 
To Messrs. C C. Barber & Co., of Grove Estate, 
Ukuwella, from whose plantations the best of 
Ceylon cacao reaches the London market, belongs 
the credit of having started the first factory in the 
island for the manufacture of cacao powder and 
chocolate. Their preparations have only just been 
placed on the Ceylon market, but long enough to 
secure the high appreciation of all those who have 
been looking for, and have now found, a pure 
article ; and we have no doubt that the Company's 
produce has a big future before it outside the 
island. Prepared on the plantation itself, the raw 
material used is fresh, uncontaminated by the 
odours of the ship's hold and of warehouses on 
this and that side of the ocean, and free from 
must or rancidity —ready enough to attach any 
oily seed or preparation. With the saving of 
freight to and from the West, and crop at hand, thg 
Company have peculiar facilities for turning out a 
cheap, pure and wholesome article which is bound to 
have a ready market and a large sale, results 
which the enterprise of the promoters only 
deserves, 
