26o CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



leaves in autumn, and all around are little heaps of 

 opened pods, from which the pulp has been taken and 

 the seeds extracted. 



The tree is about as long in attaining its growth as 

 the orange tree ; it may produce in the third year 

 from the seed, but does not reach its full bearing 

 period until at the age of seven or eight. It is a 

 tender plant during the first stages of its growth, and, 

 like the coffee, must be shaded by some broad-leaved 

 plant like the plantain or banana, which, of quicker 

 growth, are set out near the seed at time of planting. 

 Heat and moisture are indispensable to its existence, 

 but one without the other proves fatal to its growth. 



We may consider it as a blessing or a curse to the 

 islands, according to the light in which we view it. 

 As the bread-fruit is reckoned by the planters as a 

 curse, because it enables the negro to live without 

 work, and deprives the plantations of his labor, so the 

 cacao, by giving its cultivators a certain income with- 

 out toil, after the first few years of its growth, induces 

 the production of an idle, and consequently insolent, 

 population. Once started in life with an acre or so of 

 cacao trees, the negro asks for nothing more, his wife 

 and children gather the harvest, and he enjoys an 

 idle existence as only a negro knows how. 



The fruit of the cacao resembles somewhat an 

 overripe cucumber about six inches in length, oval 

 and pointed. Many of the pods grow right out of 

 the trunk of the tree, hanging by short stems, and 

 remind one of tailless rats. They are beautifully 

 colored, varying according to the specimen and the 

 progress towards maturity; some are green, some 

 yellow, crimson or purple, some variegated by veins 



