The first step is to remove the outer hull of the berries, and for this purpose he employs four dispolpadores, such as described at Settequéda, each being capable of hulling five hundred bushels of the crude berries in a day, making two thousand in a day when all are fully employed. Not having a supply of water sufficient to move the machinery, or to float the coffee into the apparatus, it has to be washed before going into the dispolpadores if it should be dirty, and it may then be put in while wet. After the hull is removed, the coffee grains having still their separate investment, are dried in the ample tile-covered yard that is adjoining the building. The cleaning process is conducted by two large fans, and if any of the smaller grains slip through the sieve of the fan without being entirely cleaned, they are submitted to hand sieves. Thus, all the coffee is prepared for sacking. The specimens seen in the building were entirely free from dust or any foreign matter, and the proprietor states will command from two to five cents per pound more than the rolled or pounded coffee.
The store-room contains an immense amount of uncleaned coffee, and the crop made on this place this year is reckoned at fifty thousand arrobas, or sixteen hundred thousand pounds of clean coffee. This is below the annual average crop, and Senor Vergueiro thinks the blooming trees indicate a larger yield for the next crop.
This coffee milling establishment is upon a much larger scale than that of Settequéda, but there are a number of conveniences and improvements in the latter, which the want of water does not admit here.
There is a saw-mill adjoining the coffee-mill, which is run by a separate engine of four horse-power, and performs very satisfactorily with a perpendicular saw.
In addition to these there is a cotton-gin, and packing apparatus under the same roof.
An American cotton-gin of seventy saws is run by the same engine, of eight horse-power, which works the coffee machinery. The compress or packing apparatus is a pattern which has been in use for some years in the United States, but is made upon a small scale to pack bales of ninety-six pounds for transportation upon pack-mules.
The gin and compress were brought from Santos upon wagons drawn by oxen.
The ordinary hemp bagging is used here for covering the cotton, and the sepo vine, which grows in this country abundantly, makes an admirable substitute for roping. It is very unyielding, and being smooth, with a facility for knotting, it fulfils all the indications completely and economically.
The hull of the coffee, and the cotton seed, with the refuse from the saw-mill, have constituted the fuel for the steam-engine, thus wasting the cotton seed that might be made very profitable, either by converting them into oil, or for manure. Upon bringing these matters to the attention of Senor Vergueiro, he expressed his intention to cease this destructive policy; and until he may be able to procure an apparatus for the manufacture of the cotton seed oil, he proposes to accumulate his seed, when it will be convenient to pour water upon them, if it should not rain sufficient to wet them, and thus rot them for manure.
A blacksmith shop and a woodshop are in very successful operation, making his own wagons, and machinery for all the purposes of his extensive establishment; and all of good quality.