II 
VANILLA 
65 
the vanilla. Macfarlane recommends making a scale on 
a piece of paper pasted on a 2 -in. strip of glass, so 
that the scale can be seen through the glass, and em- 
bedding it in putty in a hollow of the board, so that the 
surface of the glass may be level with the surface of the 
board. Placing the end with the strip of wood next 
him, the operator takes the pods, and putting the flower 
end next to the strip reads the length of the pod, and 
thus sorts them by their length into piles, or into 
compartments of a box. 
When sorted into lengths, the pods are made up 
into bundles, and the following method is the one most 
commonly used. 
Each packet contains fifty pods. First, sixteen of 
the finest are put aside for the outside of the packet. 
Then eight of the straightest are taken to form the 
centre, the others ranged around these so as to fit 
nicely together, and the sixteen finest put one by one 
outside. They are tied up with a band of raphia-bast, 
which goes twice round the bundle, a little below the 
centre of the packet. The ends of the pods are pushed 
in so that all are level and the bundle can stand on its 
end, and a band of bast is tied round each end. 
Where bast is not easily obtainable, ordinary cotton 
twine can be used for tying. 
The bundles are then packed into tin boxes contain- 
ing 85 lb. of vanilla each. 
Delteil says that no packing of paper or any 
other material should be used to wrap the bundles. 
Macfarlane, however, recommends the use of paraffin 
paper, each bundle being wrapped separately. 
The advantage of this is that in case there is a bad 
bean or two in a bundle that goes mouldy, this mould 
will not spread to the other packets. 
The tins are now soldered up and put in wooden 
cases holding three boxes apiece, and are ready for ship- 
ment. 
F 
