OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDS. Other islands of the Pacific do not loom large in
coffee growing, though New Caledonia gives promise as a producer,
exporting 1,248,024 pounds in 1916, most of which was _robusta_. Tahiti
produces a fair coffee, but in no commercial quantity. In the Samoan
group there are plantations, small in number, in size, and in amount of
production. Several islands of the Fiji group are said to be well
adapted to coffee, but little is grown there and none for export.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: OWNER'S RESIDENCE ADJOINING DRYING GROUNDS ON ONE OF THE
LARGE ESTATES]

[Illustration: DRYING GROUNDS, FAZENDA SANTA ADELAIDE, RIBEIRAO PRETO]

[Illustration: COFFEE PREPARATION IN SAO PAULO, BRAZIL]

CHAPTER XXI

PREPARING GREEN COFFEE FOR MARKET

_Early Arabian methods of preparation--How primitive devices were
replaced by modern methods--A chronological story of the
development of scientific plantation machinery, and the part played
by British and American inventors--The marvelous coffee package,
one of the most ingenious in all nature--How coffee is
harvested--Picking--Preparation by the dry and the wet
methods--Pulping--Fermentation and washing--Drying--Hulling; or
peeling, and polishing--Sizing, or grading--Preparation methods of
different countries_

La Roque[316], in his description of the ancient coffee culture, and the
preparation methods as followed in Yemen, says that the berries were
permitted to dry on the trees. When the outer covering began to shrivel,
the trees were shaken, causing the fully matured fruits to drop upon
cloths spread to receive them. They were next exposed to the sun on
drying-mats, after which they were husked by means of wooden or stone
rollers. The beans were given a further drying in the sun, and then were
submitted to a winnowing process, for which large fans were used.

_Development of Plantation Machinery_

The primitive methods of the original Arab planters were generally
followed by the Dutch pioneers, and later by the French, with slight
modifications. As the cultivation spread, necessity for more effective
methods of handling the ripened fruit mothered inventions that soon
began to transform the whole aspect of the business. Probably the first
notable advance was in curing, when the West Indian process, or wet
method, of cleaning the berries was evolved.

About the time that Brazil began the active c