Part 8 (2/2)

The cocoa is stirred by workmen using long shovels or rakes, so that it may dry quickly and evenly. Once a day the beans are shoveled into heaps and the workmen tread upon them with their bare feet, as you see. This is called ”dancing the cocoa.”

After the seeds have dried for about two weeks they are nearly the color of red bricks. They are put up for s.h.i.+pment in canvas sacks holding one hundred and fifty pounds each. The name of the plantation is usually stamped upon the outside. Guayaquil exports more cocoa than any other city. Find it. A great deal comes from the island of Trinidad, and from the northern part of South America.

When the ”beans” have reached their destination, they must be cleaned, to rid them of dust and dirt collected on the way. They are then placed in a great revolving cylinder and roasted. You remember that when coffee is roasted it brings out a pleasant odor called its _aroma_. The same is true of cocoa. The roasting also helps to loosen a sh.e.l.l which surrounds the seed. The sh.e.l.l is next removed and the ”beans” are then crushed.

The Mexicans used to crush the seeds on a large stone, hollowed out on top. This they called a ”matate.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 42.--Grinding Cocoa.

(Permission of WALTER BAKER & CO., Ltd.)]

The crus.h.i.+ng is now done by machinery. The broken bits of the cocoa are called ”cocoa nibs.” When the cocoa is ground to a powder, it is put into strong bags and pressed. This pressure removes a part of an oily substance known as ”cocoa b.u.t.ter.” Remember, then, that cocoa is the meal or flour made from the crushed seeds from which some of the oil has been removed. Chocolate differs from cocoa in that none of this oil is removed in making it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 43.--Moulding Cocoa.

(Permission of WALTER BAKER & CO., Ltd.)]

You have often seen the words ”sweet chocolate” on the labels. This is made by adding a quant.i.ty of pulverized sugar to the ”plain” or ”bitter”

chocolate. Sometimes vanilla beans are added.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 44.--Cooling Cocoa.

(Permission of WALTER BAKER & CO., Ltd.)]

The pasty ma.s.s known as chocolate must be molded. When the proper amount has been placed in each of several metal molds which rest on a table, they are made to rock or shake, and this causes the chocolate to a.s.sume the right shape. The molds are then taken to the cooling room, where they are placed on frames, one above another, in long rows. Girls and women wrap the cakes of chocolate in the wrappers specially prepared for them, after which they are packed in boxes ready for s.h.i.+pment.

At Dorchester, Ma.s.sachusetts, on the Neponset River, is situated the largest establishment for the manufacture of cocoa and chocolate in America. It is interesting to know that on the very spot where these great mills now stand, was built, in 1765, the first one of the kind in this country.

A CRANBERRY BOG

WAREHAM, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS, Dec. 10, 1901.

DEAR FRANK: How surprised you will be to learn that I am now a country boy. We left Boston early last spring, and came out here to go into the business of cranberry raising. It seemed very strange at first to travel along country roads, or through woods and fields, instead of upon the cement walks of our city streets, but we all think the country delightful.

A cranberry farm is a marsh or a bog, so you will see that the vines need a great deal of water. There are both wild and cultivated bogs.

Those that are cultivated are provided with a system of ditches, so that they can be flooded from time to time. It is a good deal like irrigation in Southern California, I suppose. We flood the bogs to prevent the berries from freezing, as well as to furnish the vines with water. I will tell you more about that by and by.

Father wanted a larger bog than the one he first bought, so, soon after we came, he got another small piece of marsh land which joins it on the west, and started vines on it.

You know that willows, rosebushes, grapevines, and many other plants will grow from _cuttings_. It is the same with cranberry vines. The lower end of each cutting is pressed into the soil, and it soon begins to grow. They are set in rows about fourteen inches apart. One of our neighbors, who was starting a bog at the same time, cut the vines into pieces an inch or two long, and scattered them over the ground. He then harrowed them in. The vines multiply just as strawberry plants do, by putting out _runners_.

They tell us that our new bog will produce a crop in three years. Do you have to wait that long for a crop of oranges?

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