Cocoa and Chocolate
Planting.
NURSERY, WITH THE YOUNG CACAO PLANTS IN BASKETS, JAVA.
(Reproduced from van Hall's Cocoa, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co.).
In the past insufficient care has been taken in the selection of seed. The planter should choose the large plump beans with a pale interior, or he should choose the nearest kind to this that is sufficiently hardy to thrive in the particular environment. He can plant (1) direct from seeds, or (2) from seedlings—plants raised in nurseries in bamboo pots, or (3) by grafting or budding. It is usual to plant two or three seeds in each hole, and destroy the weaker plants when about a foot high. The seeds are planted from twelve to fifteen feet apart. The distance chosen depends chiefly on the richness of the soil; the richer the soil, the more ample room is allowed for the trees to spread without choking each other. Interesting results have been obtained by Hart and others by grafting the fine but tender criollo on to the hardy forastero, but until yesterday the practice had not been tried on a large scale. Experiments were begun in 1913 by Mr. W.G. Freeman in Trinidad which promise interesting results. By 1919 the Department of Agriculture had seven acres in grafted and budded cacao. In a few years it should be possible to say whether it pays to form an estate of budded cacao in preference to using seedlings.
PLANTING CACAO, TRINIDAD, FROM YOUNG SEEDLINGS IN BAMBOO POTS.
There are no longer any mystic rites performed before planting. In the old days it was the custom to solemnize the planting, for example, by sacrificing a cacao-coloured dog (see Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States.)
CACAO IN ITS FOURTH YEAR (SAMOA).