In August, 1846, premiums were awarded by the Ceylon Agricultural Society to Messrs. Clerihew and Josias Lambert for the improvements they had introduced into coffee-pulpers, which, by their exertions, had been brought to great perfection.  The first improved complete cast-iron pulper received in the island, was made for Mr. Jolly, from drawings sent home by Mr. Lambert to Messrs. B. Hick and Son, engineers.  This pulper is one of the most perfect in every respect that has yet been brought into use, the disadvantages belonging to the old machine having been entirely remedied.  The sieve crank has a double eccentric action.  The chops are regulated by set screws, and the sieve suspended in a novel and secure manner, the whole combining strength and efficacy, together with an elegance of form, which will likewise be appreciated.

Mr. W. Clerihew, of Ceylon, submitted to the Great Exhibition a model of his approved apparatus for drying coffee (which has been patented in the name of Robert R. Banks, Great George Street, Westminster), and received the Isis gold medal for the same.  The intention is to dry the vegetable and aqueous moisture of the berry.  Before this is required, the coffee has previously undergone the process of pulping, or removal from the soft fleshy husk.  Here let Mr. Clerihew describe the advantages for himself—­

“When the coffee berry is picked from the tree it bears a closer resemblance to a ripe cherry, both in size and appearance; and several processes have to be gone through before the article known in commerce as coffee is produced.  In the first place, the pulpy exterior of the cherry has to be removed by the process of pulping, which separates the seed and its thin covering called the parchment, from the husk.  When the pulping process is completed, we have the parchment coffee by itself in a cistern, and the next process consists in getting rid of the mucilage with which it is covered.”

Having become assured, both by experiment and by Liebig’s reasoning, that the successive stages of decomposition were wholly ascribable to the action of the stagnant air which occupies the interstices between the beans, and taking into account that a mass of coffee presented a medium pervious to air, it occurred to Mr. Clerihew that it was possible, by means of fanners, working on the exhausting principle, so to withdraw air from an enclosed space as to establish a current of air through masses of coffee spread on perforated floors forming the top and bottom of that space.  The plan he carried into execution at Rathgoongodde plantation in 1849.  No sooner was the plan put in operation than, instead of stagnant air occupying the interstices of the beans and gradually acting on them, a stream of air was established and flowing through the mass of coffee, each bean of it became surrounded by a constantly renewed atmosphere of fresh air.

Java.—­When Arabia enjoyed the exclusive monopoly of coffee, it could not be foreseen that one day the island of Java would furnish for the consumption of the world from 125 to 130 millions of pounds per annum.  The cultivation was introduced by M. Zwaendenkroom, the Governor-General of Batavia, who obtained seeds from Mocha, in 1723.  According to official statements the following are the exports.