1^0 THE PLANT WORLD. 



The inestimable plant, named by Linnaeus, TJieobroma (the food 

 of gods), is indigenous to tropical America, but acclimatized within the 

 twenty-fifth parallels of latitude. The cocoa tree is an evergreen, 

 which grows to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, with drooping 

 bright green leaves, in shape oblong, eight or nine inches long, three 

 inches broad, and pointed at the ends. The flowers and fruit, which 

 it bears at all seasons of the year, grow off the trunk and thickest 

 parts of the boughs, with stalks only an inch long. Humboldt saw the 

 flower bursting through the earth out of the root, and wondered at 

 the prodigious vital force of this plant. The flowers, which grow in 

 tufts or clusters, are very small, having five yellow petals on a rose- 

 colored calj'x. The fruit is five-celled, without valves, from seven to 

 nine and one-half inches in length, and three to four inches in breadth, 

 of an elliptic oval-pointed shape, somewhat like the vegetable marrow, 

 only more elongated and pointed at the end, tough and quite smooth, 

 the color varying according to the season, from bright yellow to red 

 and purple. The rind of the fruit is very thick, and similar to a very 

 hard, tough apple in substance, but quite tasteless; if allowed to ripen, 



this changes into a shell of a weak nature. 

 The seeds contained in each pod vary in 

 number from twenty to forty, embedded 

 in a soft pinky white, acid pulp. The 

 cocoa tree, while growing in that portion 

 of the earth wherein the heat is greatest, 

 yet requires a sheltered situation for its 

 perfection. It is grown, more or less, in 

 Mexico, Honduras, Guatamala, Nicaragua, 

 and throughout almost the whole of Cen- 

 tral America, in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, 

 NewGrenada,Venezuela, Surinam, Deme- 

 rara, Essequibo, and the West Indian 

 Islands. It has also been grown in Africa, 



Stem of Cocoa Tree showing leaves, ,, .. ,tt ti-i-o -l 



flowers and fruit. Mauritius, Madagascar, Isle de Bourbon, 



Australia, and the Philippine Islands. 

 As soon as collected the nuts are taken from the pod and covered 

 with a layer of sand. A fermentation ensues, which has the effect 

 of developing the aroma, while it takes off the bitterness of the nuts, 

 which are spread out to dry in a drying or curing house. This house 

 consists of a strongly built span or roof, fixed with wheels running on 

 iron rails laid along a stout framework, which supports a platform 

 underneath, and upon which the cocoa beans or nuts are dried. They 

 are brought to this country in bags. — Condensed from the British Trade 

 Journal. 



