unces as the produce of each tree
annually. In some instances, but very seldom, one pound a tree may be
obtained. A bushel of cherry coffee will produce about ten or twelve
pounds of merchantable coffee.

The coffee berry, after being pulped and soaked for a day and night to
free it from the mucilage, is spread out on barbacues to dry; in ten
or twelve days, if the weather has been good, it will be sufficiently
cured for the peeling mill.

Mr. W.H. Marah, of Jamaica, in a Prize Essay on the Cultivation and
Manufacture of Coffee in that Island, published in my "Colonial
Magazine," makes some useful remarks:--

The manufacture of this staple commodity, with a view to its
improvement in quality, is a subject which demands our serious
attention; and when we observe the vast importance and pecuniary
advantage which accrue upon the slightest shade of improvement
either in colour or appearance, it becomes the more imperative on us
to use all those means which are available, in order to place
ourselves on a footing with the foreign grower. It is true that we
are unable to enter the contest with the East Indian or slave
cultivator, from the abundance and cheapness of labour which is
placed at their command; but by means of our skill and assiduity, we
can successfully compete with them by the manufacture of superior
produce.

To this portion of plantation management I have given an attentive
inquiry, and shall shortly proceed to state my views on the system
best adapted to the curing and preparing for market of good quality
produce.

The fruit should be gathered in when in a blood-ripe state, to all
appearance like cherries. The labourers are principally accustomed
to reap the crop in baskets, of which they carry two to the field;
and when the coffee is bearing heavily, and is at its full stage of
ripeness, the good pickers will gather in four bushels _per diem_,
and carry the same on their heads to the works.

The fruit is then measured and thrown into a loft above the pulper
in a heap. It should be submitted to the first process of machinery,
the pulper, within twenty-four hours after, if not immediately; but
it not unfrequently happens that the manager is unable to pulp his
coffee for two and sometimes three days, by which time fermentation
ensues, and it becomes impossible after pulping to wash off the
m