The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1898-07-28
UNLOADING COCOANUTS.
on the Wharf-Expert Sorters
and Counters.

COcOanutS are loaded IN the hold of
vessel in bulk. Upon their discharge
here they are sacked, for greater con.
venience in handling and shipment
This work, which involves sorting the.
nuts as to size and separating the sound
from the unsound, is done on the wharf
alongside the vessel.
When the matches have been taken of
men get into the vessels hold with
bushel baskets, which they fill with
cocoanuts. These baskets of nuts are
handed up over the hatch coaming and
passed along across the deck and over
the rail and onto the wharf, where they
are set up on box of convenient height
beside which stand the cumbersome
times two, but oftener three, all experts
at sorting and counting cocoanuts. The
three men stand side by side on the side
OF the box toward the vessel, and on the
other side stands man holding a sack
with mouth open, into which the nuts
are thrown as they are counted.
Back of the counters, against the
stringpiece of the wharf, are baskets
into which the culls are thrown; these
include the smaller nuts, cracked nuts
and sprouts, which are nuts that have
begun to sprout. Cocoanuts are put up
in sacks containing 100 large nuts and
120 smaller nuts. The smaller nuts
thrown aside in the sorting and count
ing are from time to time taken away
by other men and sacked. These are
sound nuts, but they bring a smaller
price on account of their size. The
cracked nuts and the sprouts would rot
soon if they were not used and these
are kept apart and sold cheap for quick
consumption.
The counters do nothing but sort and
count: they never touch a basket.
When basket has been emptied an
other man pulls it off the box and sets
a full basket in it's place. There is al
ways at least one basket of nuts on the
box; there are usually more than one,
so that the sorting and counting go on
constantly. Each counter picks up two
nuts at once, one in each hand, and all
three counters toss nuts into the same
bag, but there is never any confusion
in the count: Two nuts are counted
one, for convenience of keeping tally,
and when the three men. have counted
up to 50 the man holding the bag, now
containing 100 nuts, drags it away and
another man takes his place with an
empty bag, and the counters begin
again, one, two, three, and up to 50
again.
Picking up every time two nuts, the
counter taps them gently together to
see it they are sound. This constant
gentle clicking is one of the features of
the unloading of cocoanuts. A nut of
small size would of course be apparent
to the eye, but it might not be apparent
whether the small nut was cracked or
sound. Tapping the nuts together re-
veals their condition to the expert in
stantly. If he throws out nutshe picks
up another, still retaining the other nut
in the other hand. He now taps to-
gether the nut that he has picked up in
place of the one thrown out and the nut
that he had continued to hold, and if
these are both sound and of suitable
size he losses them into the bag and
counts s'One," or ''Thirty-one, - or what
ever number they come to in, the count
ing. ~ .-
Other men sew up the sacks, which
are then piled on trucks to be taken to
the storehouse or ranged along the
wharf to be carted off later. A cargo
OF cocoanuts con ains from $50, OCO nuts
up, according to the size of the vessel.
A big vessel might bring 100000 10 6OO,-
600. The work of discharging cargo
of 100000 cocoanuts would ordinarily
occupy about week. Y. Sun.
City Lighted by Acetylene Gas.