, 1891-01-24

Shells. a~ssfnEnure for the trees, aud the. cocoa
grains alone should be removed to the works,
where's they sshoud be placed In baore's
which they should sweat for two days,
then be turned out on a tray for a short time,
and then put back into the barrel to sweat
.torgtwo days more. If of bad quality they
may safely sweat for six days. After the
sweating they must be placed in trays or
drawers. TOT dry, which they must do tho
roughly, and when properly dry the beans
will crack between the finger and thumb, and
the skin peel off easily.
This is not the way he had seen cocoa treat
ed generally in Dominica during his visit it
appears to be simply washed after being taken
out of the pods, and then dried. Cocoa must
be sweated to remove the acrid bitter taste
and give the bean the full favour. In Ceylon
thak@acoa is treated as described, and Ceylon
cgs0BSeommands in the English market 100
fGNSa&Q shlllings the cwt, whilst Dominica
GRtga only brings 81 shillings. And yet cocoa
new industry in Ceylon. In this island
heshad seen at Mr.. A. d. Riviere's at Clark
Hall and Mr.. Crompton's at ALalgretout
very good arrangements for drying cocoa
which might be easily and judicious y follow.
ed. HE then showed upon living young trees
how cocoa should be pruned.
Having mentioned bananas in connection
~ SOCO6 lat WOO1Ok uOW ody " tGW WO1'AS
about them. The banana that met the choice
Of the American market was a long full
banana of O. bright yellow colour when ripe,
such as is now grown in Jamaica, and it was
useless to grow or to ship any other, as the
Americans would not buy them. The lunches
should be cut at full maturity, but before they
had begun to ripen. Great care should he
taken that the bananas were not bruised lifta9
handling, as every bruise would rot on ship
board ard ruin the fruit TOR market. Care
must also be taken not to bruise the point
end OF the stalk, as ii 1T was bruised the stalk
would rot on the passage and the bunch fall
to pieces when it reached New York. The
best way to carry bananas was to roll the
bunch in O. loose bandage or rope made of
dry banana leaves. Bananas should be plant
ed at q good distance apart, ard in properly
dug and prepared holes they Should be kept
welded and. the earth always hauled mp to
their roots anil not from them. A mass OF
young shoots should not be allowed to glow
around the parent stem. Mr.. Morris exhih;t-
ed a magnificent bunch of bananas cut upon
Mrs. John~on's Estate at Shaugford and said
everyone growing banan as for the American
market should try 70 grow them like it, as
lunches of Six or seven hands were of no use.
He also showed how@the bunch should be
rolled in dry banana leaves.
The mex artlcIe OF export WaSiconee, which
in former days1was the pride and the source
of great prosperity to Dominica; but unfor-
tunately a disease had attacked it, and now
from thousands of pounds it was reduced as
IN export to q value of only four hundred.
Ceylon, which once exported its millions OF
hundred weights of coffee had also been
struck by a disease, and coffee there had
almost ceased as an export, and had been
replaced by the energy and pluck of it's
planters with tea, which industry was now
one of the wonders of tropical agriculture.
The disease IN Ceylon and Dominica was
however of a different kind here it was pro-
duced by a small fly, which attacked the
leaves. This fly had also created the same
disease in Jamaica, but il was fo@na there
that the fly could not exist at elevations of
1000 feet, so the coffee was sale over that
elevation on the Blue Mountains Of Jamaica,
and there could not be the slightest doubt
that Arabian coffee could still successfully be
grown here on the mountains at and above
that elevation. Indeed, he had seen healthy
coffee trees here at lower elevations. The
LibefiAn coffee was aspecies that grewreadily
at very much lower elevations. One Of the
drawbacks to coffee cultivation was the ex-
pensiye machinery required to prepare IL for
the European market, but this had in q gle&b
measure been done away with, as machinery
had been erected in England for preparing it,
80 that coffee can now he sent home In the
husk and be prepared in England at Is. I'd! a