594 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 11 
then a man walked from one end to the other and 
back again, pushing a wooden shovel that left the 
fruit heaped in ridges six inches high and a foot 
apart. After they had dried awhile, he pushed that 
shovel from side to side across that patio, and made 
new ridges, and so kept on until the berries were all 
black, hard and dry. Then they went to the mill 
and were put into a big hopper in the second story, 
from which they ran in a steady stream to a circular 
iron trough on the first floor. Two wooden wheels 
six feet or so across, and four inches thick at their 
iron-bound edges, like big Nicaraguan cart-wheels, 
at the ends of an axle a dezen feet long and swinging 
by the middle, rolled around and around on the 
coffee in that trough, and cracked the dried outside 
cover, and the cascara that looks like parchment, and 
is next to the pulp. Inside of that, was a thin and 
tender skin. Beans and broken shells worked their 
way together through the hundreds of small holes in 
the sloping sides of that trough, and were carried by 
an elevator to such a fanning mill as farmers here 
use for cleaning grain. It sifted the beans into dif¬ 
ferent sizes, and blew the shells and dust and dirt 
into a bin from which it went to the furnace, to help 
make steam to turn the mill to clean more coffee to 
furnish more shells to make more steam, and so on 
around. 
“ The beans ran down a spout to sacks on the first 
floor, but they were not yet quite ready to go to mar¬ 
ket; they went, instead, to long tables that stood on 
the cement floor of the veranda of the 
storehouse. There they were put into 
the little divisions which were separated 
by partitions a hand-breadth high. In 
the left-hand front corner of each of 
these divisions was a hole four inches 
square, and under it was a coffee sack. 
Before each of those divisions a woman 
sat and drew from the heaped coffee a 
handful of beans. She spread them over 
the clear spot before her and deftly 
picked out the bits of stone, of dried 
earth, and wood she discovered, and threw 
them on the ground. Next she picked 
out the broken grains and all that were 
blackened, and put them in a calabash 
that sat on the heap of coffee before her. 
Then she sorted out the caracolillo, and 
put it into another calabash.” 
“And what is ‘caracolillo’ if you 
please ?” 
“Literally, the word means ‘little 
curled shellbut among coffee growers 
and dealers, it means seeds which have 
had too much sunshine, or haven’t been 
able to get enough water when they 
wanted it, and so are only partly grown, 
and are curled into a pea-like shape. 
You call it ‘ Peaberry Mocha ’.” 
“Is Mocha truly coffee that isn’t ripe ? 
Why, it is the highest in price 1 ” 
“ I wouldn’t say that it isn’t ripe ; only 
that the seeds are small and deformed. 
They seem to be as sound as any others. 
And you will learn that the most perfect 
things in this world are by no means al¬ 
ways the most prized. For many a year, 
caracolillo was kept at home in Arabia, I 
have heard, because dealers wouldn’t buy 
it. They thought it wasn’t fit to sell to Christians. 
But once upon a time, when the season had been even 
hotter and drier than usual in that dry and hot coun¬ 
try, and there was much less of the large grain and 
much more of the little, curled-up bean than any¬ 
body wanted, some genius thought that he’d send the 
caracolillo to market and give it a new name. He had 
shrewdness enough to tell people that it was scarce— 
and it is always scarce in comparison with other 
coffee—and to charge a high price for it. Of course, 
people discovered that its flavor was mild, and pleas¬ 
anter than that of any other coffee, and from that 
day to this, Mocha has brought a high price.” 
“ Well, don’t you think it is mild and pleasant, and 
that it should bring a high price? ” 
“I do, my dear ; I do if you say so. It is likely to 
keep on doing so, for there is little of it in any crop, 
even when there has been a drought. The sorted 
coffee at El Tacaniste went into the sacks under the 
tables, and when one was full, it was taken to the 
scales and weighed. A foreman put in enough to 
make 115 pounds, or took some out if there happened 
to be too much ; he gave the sorter credit for her 
work, and sewed up the mouth of the sack. It went 
to the storeroom to await the cart that was to take it 
to the wharf in Managua, 15 miles down the moun¬ 
tain—for El Tacaniste is 2,800 feet above the level of 
the sea.” 
“ What do they pay those women for sorting 
coffee ?” 
“ I think it is 15 cents for each 100 pounds ; and the 
carters get 25 cents per 100 pounds for carrying it to 
town.” 
“ Where do those women live ? ” 
“Well, when they are harvesting, or sorting, they 
lodge in a house built for the use of harvesters. It is 
a good wooden building with an iron roof. It has a 
hall 10 feet wide that runs the whole length of the 
building, and I don’t know but it may stick out into 
the surrounding country ; at all events, the people 
sit outside in the evenings and laugh and chatter 
gaily enough There are on each side of that hall 
two or three tiers of bunks, and big ones, too. They 
are ten feet from front to back, and seven feet wide. 
You see, each is large enough for a whole family to 
sleep in.” 
“You surely don’t mean that they sleep there—a 
whole family ! ” 
“Why, yes. Why not? The bunks have board 
floors and walls. Some of them even have coffee 
sacks nailed up in front, for curtains. Even the floor 
of that big hall is made of planks. What more 
could any one wish for ? ” 
“ Oh, you can’t mean it ! And where do they cook ?” 
“The harvesters are not expected to cook for them¬ 
selves at El Tacaniste. It is cheaper to hire other 
women to do that for the pickers.” 
“ Is that the way they do all over Nicaragua ? ” 
“ No. In the northern part of the country, Mata- 
galpa, Jinotega and other districts where the forests 
that clothe the mountains are always fresh, and the 
THE BUILDINGS ON A COFFEE PLANTATION. Fig. 251. 
springs always full of pure water because they have 
rains every month of every year, and it is really 
springtime forever, they wash the coffee instead of 
drying it. The berries are thrown into heaps to fer¬ 
ment, after which the pulp is crushed and washed 
away, leaving the bean in the cascara, or shell like 
parchment. There are machines which take off the 
pulp, the cascara and the thin inner skin at once, and 
leave the bean cleaner than thatjaf the dry country, 
for there is always more or less dust in the latter. 
“Fig. 250 shows the headquarters of a cafetal that 
isn’t old enough yet to pay for a mill and a good 
house for the owner. His house at the right has a 
floor and walls of lumber, but the others are* such 
huts as the common people of that country live in all 
their lives. Those folk staring at us from the right 
of the picture are pickers. They are of a race which 
dwelt there nobody knows how many ages before a 
white man ever saw the new world, which is, after 
all, the oldest part of this world. They don’t seem 
so very unhappy. The machete that chap sitting on 
the stump holds in his hand, is not for use in hard 
work ; it is more for show when one rides to town, 
but will do good work as a sword in a fracas. These 
people seldom quarrel, though, for they are gentle 
and polite. Those trays you see behind the owner 
are filled with drying coffee. He’ll have a machine 
to dry his crop as soon as his trees become five or six 
years old, for they will give from 13^ to 2 pounds 
then, and he will be well able to afford machinery, 
buildings and comforts. When that time shall come. 
he will get pretty nearly 82 back for each one he will 
spend on his coffee. 
“ Yes, the plants with the big leaves in the left 
corner are bananas, and the photograph shows plainly 
how a number of young plants sprout up from the 
base of the larger one, after it has been growing a 
few months. When the fruit of the first stalk is fully 
grown, but not ripe, that stalk will be cut down, and 
the next one will mature its one bunch. By that 
time, two or three others in the hill will be well 
along with their bunches—and so they will go on for 
years, furnishing food for the planter and his help¬ 
ers, his dogs, pigs, cattle and poultry, and costing 
next to nothing.”_ e. w perry. 
BRIEF NOTES ON THE N. Y. STATE FAIR. 
The dates of the fairs are fixed to accommodate the 
breeders, who go from one to another. In fact, they 
are the only ones who exhibit at the larger fairs. 
The exhibits were owned in nearly all classes by two 
or three men. To win a premium, one must be rich 
enough to own the best few specimens of the breed, 
and skillful enough to fit them perfectly. Whether 
they are ruined for future breeding or not doesn’t 
matter. Quantity adds nothing to a show, and com¬ 
petition compels quality. Circuit dates are, probably, 
all right, but farmers no longer compete in cattle 
classes any more than on the race track. The chief 
value of these exhibits is to influence farmers to use 
full-blood sires, and improve their common stock. 
French-Canadian cattle, which seem to 
be something like a “ fined-up ” Guernsey, 
are smooth, and show good dairy quali¬ 
ties. They average larger than a Jersey, 
and are said to give rich milk. Jerseys 
took the lead in numbers. No Herefords, 
Aberdeen-Angus, or Red Polls, with one 
exception, were shown from this State. 
At a meeting of the directors of the 
State Breeders’ Association, every asso¬ 
ciation but one in the State was repre¬ 
sented. W. H. Chamberlin, of Kanona, 
N. Y., was elected secretary in place of 
H. M. Cottrell, who retired. The presi¬ 
dent, C. D. McLaury, stated that one ob¬ 
ject had been to secure expert judges for 
the fairs, and they had been fairly suc¬ 
cessful in doing away with the “ farce ” 
judging. Thirty to 40 breeders were 
present, and discussion brought out the 
fact that all were in favor of a general 
meeting of all associations at the same 
time and place. The example of Ohio 
breeders, reduced railroad and hotel rates, 
influence, as a united body, on the legis¬ 
lature, ability to attend meetings of more 
than one society without extra expense, 
and extended acquaintance among breed¬ 
ers, are some of the reasons urged for one 
grand meeting, and programme. A reso¬ 
lution to attempt it was passed, and a 
committee to fix date and place was ap¬ 
pointed. After considerable discussion, 
an informal vote resulted in a good ma¬ 
jority in favor of Ithaca for the place of 
the next meeting. I believe this to be 
the best move that has been made for 
some time to benefit breeders. 
In machinery, the tendency is to im¬ 
prove, and add to what we have, rather than to make 
new. Extra side bars can be bolted on now, so as to 
make a wide cutting tool of the hand cultivators. 
One extra shank and long shovel plates, soon put on, 
make a furrower and, when reversed, a coverer. 
They are attached to the center instead of side shanks. 
A self-feeder attached to the small sized ensilage cut¬ 
ters will be appreciated, and save one man’s time. 
Stone crushers are now very powerful, and deliver on 
to the wagon direct. Straw is blown through a tube 
which swings on a pivot, so as to deliver in any part 
of the barn. The poor fellows who have been choked 
and poisoned with the dust of grain, dirt and smut, 
will be glad to learn of dust blowers, which collect 
and send out-doors the clouds of dust. 
The potato exhibit was a fair indication of the yield 
this season—small in numbers and size, and poor in 
quality. June Eating for early, and the Carman Nos. 
1 and 8 seemed the best. One cannot get much knowl¬ 
edge studying potato exhibits, because of the great 
confusion existing as to names of varieties. Early 
Bovee and a plate marked Sunrise were shown side by 
side. Good judges said that they were both exactly 
alike, and neither plate genuine. Sir Walter Raleigh 
was shown as a rough, oblong, white variety, which 
did not resemble it in any respect. While there may 
be an excuse for mistakes in new varieties, there is 
none for six entries marked White Star, an old variety, 
which were not true to name. If the society wish to 
give an exhibit of the best and most profitable pota¬ 
toes, it should revise its list. Potatoes deteriorate 
