move the silver
skin and to give the beans a special polish. Some countries demand a
highly polished coffee; and to supply this demand, the beans are sent
through another huller having a phosphor-bronze cylinder and cone. Much
Guadeloupe coffee is prepared in this way, and is known as _cafe
bonifieur_ from the fact that the polishing machine is called in
Guadeloupe the _bonifieur_ (improver). It is also called _cafe de luxe_.
Coffee that has not received the extra polish is described as
_habitant_; while coffee in the parchment is known as _cafe en parche_.
Extra polished coffee is much in demand in the London, Hamburg, and
other European markets. A favorite machine for producing this kind of
coffee is the Smout combined peeler and polisher, the invention of Jules
Smout, a Swiss. Don Roberto O'Krassa also has produced a highly
satisfactory combined peeler and polisher.

For hulling dry cherry coffee there are several excellent makes of
machines. In one style, the hulling takes place between a rotating disk
and the casing of the machine. In another, it takes place between a
rotary drum covered with a steel plate punched with vertical bulbs, and
a chilled iron hulling-plate with pyramidal teeth cast on the plate.
Both are adjustable to different varieties of coffee. In still another
type of machine, the hulling takes place between steel ribs on an
internal cylinder, and an adjustable knife, or hulling blade, in front
of the machine.

[Illustration: EL MONARCA COFFEE CLASSIFIER]

_Sizing or Grading_

The coffee bean is now clean, the processes described in the foregoing
having removed the outer skin, the saccharine pulp, the parchment, and
the silver skin. This is the end of the cleaning operations; but there
are two more steps to be taken before the coffee is ready for the trade
of the world--sizing and hand-sorting. These two operations are of great
importance; since on them depends, to a large extent, the price the
coffee will bring in the market.

[Illustration: Old rope-drive transmission on Finca Ona.]

[Illustration: Hydro-electric power plant on Finca Ona.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC INSTALLATION ON A GUATEMALA FINCA]

Sizing, or grading by sizes, is done in modern commercial practise by
machines that automatically separate and distribute the different beans
according to size and form. In principle, the beans are carried across a
series of sieves, each with perforations varying in size from the
others; the beans pa