arises in wet weather, when one's skill and assiduity is called into
action to save the produce from being spoiled. After coffee has been
half-cured, the putting it up hot at an early period of the day has
the effect of curing it all night. I have noticed produce housed in
this manner, and requiring another day's exposure to fit it for the
mill, found perfectly cured next morning.
The barbacues should be kept in good order--all ruts and holes
neatly patched every crop, for to them and other roughnesses is to
be attributed the peeling of the berries, their being scratched, and
various injuries which the produce sustains. And while on the
subject of "Works," I cannot help noticing the extreme carelessness
and inattention which, on visiting properties, the works and
buildings present to our view. It is utterly impossible to
manufacture good produce unless the machinery and buildings are kept
in good order; and the parsimony which is thus displayed in this
necessary outlay is fallacious, when one thinks of the result of one
or two shillings per 100 lbs. lost on a crop through this neglect.
When the coffee is perfectly cured--which is generally ascertained
by threshing out a few berries in one's hands, and seeing if it has
attained its horny blue colour--it is then fit for milling, which is
the second process of machinery which it has to undergo. Here the
parchment and silver skins are dislodged from the berry, by means of
the friction of a large roller passing over the produce in a wooden
trough. It is then taken out of the trough, and submitted to the
fanner or winnowing machine, when the trash is all blown away, and
the coffee, passing through two or three sieves, comes away
perfectly clean and partially sized. From this it is again sieved in
order to size it properly, hand-picked, put into bags, and sent on
mules' backs to the wharf. It is then put into tierces and sold in
the Kingston market, or shipped to Britain.
A variety of circumstances tend to injure the quality of the coffee,
which it is beyond human agency to control. Dry weather intervening
at the particular period when the berry is getting full, subjects it
to be stinted and shrivelled; and strong dry breezes happening at
the same period, will cause an adhesion of the silver skin which the
ordinary process of curi
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