r which American
advertising methods have been largely responsible in the development of
the package-coffee business in the United States. The term "steel-cut"
lost all its value as an advertising catchword for the original user
when every other dealer began to use it, no matter how the ground coffee
was produced. When the public has been taught that coffee should be
"steel-cut", it is hard to sell it ground coffee unless it is called
"steel-cut"; although a truer education of the consumer would have
caused him to insist on buying whole bean coffee to be ground at home.

[Illustration: SMYSER PACKAGE-MAKING-AND-FILLING MACHINE AT THE ARBUCKLE
PLANT, NEW YORK

This machine was invented by Henry E. Smyser of Philadelphia, who
secured the first patent in 1880, but it has been much improved by the
Arbuckle engineers. The half shown on the left makes the one-pound paper
bags complete, including the separate lining of parchment, fills the
bag, automatically inserts a premium list at the same time, packs it
down, seals it, and delivers it on a short conveyor to the other half
(shown on the right) where the package is wrapped in the outside
glassine paper and pushed out on a table for the girls to put into
shipping cases]

"Steel-cut" coffee, that is, a medium-ground coffee with the chaff blown
out, does not compare in cup test with coffee that has been more
scientifically ground and not given the chaff removal treatment that is
largely associated in the public mind with the idea of the steel-cut
process.

[Illustration: MACHINE FOR AUTOMATICALLY PACKING COFFEE IN CARTONS

Five distinct operations are performed by the units comprising this
Pneumatic installation, viz., carton-feeding, bottom-sealing, lining,
weighing and top-sealing]

According to the results of the trade canvass previously referred to, it
would appear that the terms most suited to convey the right idea of the
different grades of grinding, and likely to be acceptable to the
greatest number, would be "coarse" (for boiling, and including all the
coarser grades); "medium" (for coffee made in the ordinary pot,
including the so-called "steel-cut"); "fine" (like granulated sugar, and
used for percolators); "very fine" (like cornmeal, and used for drip or
filtration methods); "powdered" (like flour, and used for Turkish
coffee).

Coffee begins to lose its strength immediately after roasting, the rate
of loss increasing rapidly after grinding. In a test carrie