October i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



333 





best, but for all the other lands I should make 

 nurs-ries either in beds, pots, bamboos or baskets, 

 selecting a stiff good soil for the same. I saw Mr. 

 Drummond advised a poor soil for the nursery be- 

 cause the roots would not go deep. If after you dig 

 up yuur nursery, take out all stones and roots, make 

 it into beds, then beat the soil down you will get a 

 strong healthy plant, and the reot will not go down 

 too deep. On no account use a s-andy soil for a 

 nursery : it will tend to give plants the black heart 

 will attract more heat to the roots and cacao will^ not 

 thrive in sandy soil unleBS it is always moist. Nurs- 

 eries should always be shaded and well-watered. 

 Should a nursery be attacked by inBects, a dusting of 

 sulphur, wood -ash, lime, or a mixture of the three, 

 or, with a solution of kerosine oil or vasumba, water 

 your plants. This can he done in a nursery without 

 much expense, but would be too expensive to go all over 

 the estate. In good soil small plants can be planted out, 

 but in poor sorl I would prefer to let my plants grow up 

 from 12 to 18. inches before planting them out. Great 

 care should be taken iu the selection of seed pod*. 

 There are said to be some 16 varieties of cacao already 

 in Ceylon. Some say the yellow fruit is safe from 

 insect attack. I have heard otherwise. At all events, 

 the fruit of the large, dark, red, rough pods is a large 

 oval seed, and, if well cured, will bring the best 

 price, and the trees grow well. The seed should be 

 planted with the part nearest the raceme down. You 

 will oftuu liud the seed planted the wrong way, and 

 that the mots will come up and then turu back into 

 the soil, wanting strength to lift up the seed. The 

 stem gets very large at the lower end, but very thin 

 near the seed ; it is then that the lower stem often 

 gets black-hearted. If soil is left as dug over without 

 pressing it down, it will be very difficult to trans 

 plant, even planting at stake the soil should always 

 be well pressed down before seed is planted. The 

 cacao plant thrives best iu a stiff soil : iu light loose 

 soil, the soil will not keep together, and, if using 

 Scowen's transplanter, the pressure you use to push 

 out the plant will most likely double up, or other- 

 wise injure the root, whereas in stiff soil no injury 

 will happen to the plant. A good plan iu making a 

 nursery on new or old soil is to have the soil well- 

 covered with some cat jungle, maana, &c. ; when 

 dry enough to burn same, then to dig the soil and 

 make beds. All young plants like wood-ash, and the 

 burn will kill any germs of fungi or eggs of in- 

 sects. There is difference of opinion as regards the 

 best size to plant out cacao : some say from C inches 

 to 1 foot, and to plant out in June or July. I have 

 planted out cacao plants from 6 inches in height to 

 3 feet in height at all times during the year, and 

 have certainly had tiie least failures amongst the 

 large plauts. I do not consider it good to plant out 

 cacao in rainy weather, as you might plant coffee or 

 tea, as great care is required not to disturb the soil 

 around ihe cacao plant in taking it out of the soil, 

 carrying or planting it. To plant in very light rain 

 is >afe, but I consider it best to plant when there 

 is no rain as long as your soil is damp, and you have 

 mana or good leaves to shade the plant, especially 

 so ou steep land. On flat hind the surface roots of 

 the plant can be nearly level with surface of soil, but 

 on steep land I would advise the surface roots of the 

 plant to be 2 or 3 inches below old surface soil on 

 lower part of hole and make a small outlet for water — 

 after the plant has fairly grown 1 foot or so, then bring 

 in soil from the sides aid fill up the hole. You will 

 protect the surface roots from the sun as well as from 

 the weeders and wash. 



Holing. — There is a great difference of opinion. 

 Some planters make no holes but plant at stake with 

 alavangas or forks; others make holes iromoue foot totwo 

 feet deep, and from one foot to two feet wide. Fifteen 



inches wide by two feet deep is now the size of holes 

 mostly made. In steep laud I would certainly advise 

 deep holes slanting towards the hill. If you cut 

 straight holes, the lower side roots will not have 

 much soil to feed on. The plant planted in a hole 

 cut slanting will, with a slight curve near i he ground, 

 become a straight tree above. You must always keep 

 suckers from the plants but never pull them off, but 

 always make your contract weedtrs cut them off. It 

 is not nectssary to keep a cacao estate weeded same 

 as coffee : it can be treated somewhat like coconuts 

 in the lowcountry, only keeping the ground clean in a 

 3-feet circle around the tree, taking out all jungle 

 or large weeds from the balance. 

 (To be continued.) 



CACAO CUEING IN TRINIDAD. 



Trinidad has for so long been famous for its cacao, 

 that we never doubted that the art and mystery of cur- 

 ing the bean were, in that colony, perfectly under- 

 stood. A long report in the Port-of-Spain Gazette, 

 of a meeting of the Trinidad Agricultural Association, of 

 a paper which was read by a Mr. W, S. Tucker and 

 the discussion which followed, gives us a very different 

 impression and convinces us that our planters in 

 Ceylon must have the advantage in this matter. It 

 seems that Mr. Tucker was compelled by circum- 

 stances to become a cacao-planter, and that, in his 

 efforts at curing the bean, he encountered great 

 difficulties in preventing mildew and the shrinkage 

 and collapse of the bean, which ought, he said, when 

 perfectly cured, to retaiu somewhat the shape of a 

 pigeon's egg, the internal portion of the bean being, 

 if anything, freer from moisture than the outside. 

 He also found that beans of different varieties of 

 cacao and of different sizes ought to be cured separ- 

 ately. Having met with much disheartening failure 

 in his attempts to cure the beans by ordinary atmo- 

 spheric influences, Mr. Tucker resoited to artificial 

 dessication. It seems that the Cacao Planters' Associ- 

 ation had ordered from Mr. Gibbs, manufacturer 

 of the Gibbs & Barry Tea Drier, a machine on the 

 same principle for the preparation of cacao beans. 

 We may, in passing, and as a hint to cacao curers 

 in Ceylon, say, that, iu our opinion, they ought to 

 have indented on the United States for a fruit 

 evaporator, one of those machines which ere long 

 will be tried iu Ceylon in the roasting of tea leaves. 

 Mr. Tucker tried Gibbs's machiue, which, as we have 

 stated, was ou the same principle as the tea drier, 

 a metal cylinder through which heat was driven by 

 fanners. But, strange to say, considering that the 

 tremendous heat of 700 c iahr. is obtained by the 

 tea drier, the cacao machine failed from deficient 

 temperature. The highest that could possibly be ob- 

 tained by its means was lbO", and the beans, repeatedly 

 inserted, came out merely warm instead of hot, and, 

 according to Mr. Gibbs'iJ directions, the beans were 

 lelt to cool each time they came out of the cylinder, 

 the effect of which Mr, 'Tucker denounced as very bad. 

 As the real secret of curing seems to be that of 

 so dispelling moisture from the soft fatty substance 

 as to prevent either collapse of the swelled-out bean 

 or the formation of mrldew ending in rottenness, 

 Mr. Tucker felt compelled to abandon the use of 

 Gibbs's machine, and resort to one of his own 

 invention. By means of this machine and the 

 burning of wood-fuel, he obtained a heat of 300° 

 to 400° Fahr., and so turned out his beans piceou- 

 egg-shaped and perfectly dessicated, so as not to be 

 subjected to what poor Clerihew described as " erema- 

 causis or decay." Mr, Tucker was about to proceed 



