664 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



field for adulteration, and with the constantly increasing consump- 

 tion of cocoa and chocolates the oi)portunity for profit through the 

 adulteration of these articles increases with equal pace. 



(3) DESCRIPTION OF THE CHOCOLATE PLANT AND ITS FRUIT. 



Cocoa, chocolate and cocoa butter are prepared from the seeds 

 of Theobromacacas, a very small tree belonging to the botanical 

 order Sterculiaceal and native to the tropical regions of the Western 

 Hemisphere. A striking peculiarity of the plumb is to be seen in 

 the fact that the flowers and fruit, which it produces at all seasons 

 of the year grow from the trunk and thickest parts of the branches, 

 instead of developing from the youngest shoots. The flowers, which 

 grow in clusters and are very small, have a corolla of five yellow 

 petals and a rose colored calyx. The fruit is a five-celled pod 

 from seven to nine inches, or more, in length and from three to 

 four inches in diameter, nearly oval iii outline, but somewhat pointed 

 at the end opposite the stem. 



As cocoa pods are not articles of commerce they are rather diffi- 

 cult to obtain. Through the kindness of the firm of Craft and Allen, 

 chocolate manufacturers of Philadelphia, I succeeded in obtaining 

 a number of very perfect pods from the island of Trinidad. 



Two of these pods are illustrated in Fig. 1. The larger of these 

 two pods is seven and three-fourths inches in length, three and one- 

 half inches thick and eleven inches in circumference. The distance 

 around the pod lengthwise is eighteen inches As will be observed 

 from the photograph the surface of the pods is rather rough and pro- 

 vided with ten distinct grooves. These grooves represent the posi- 

 tions of the midribvs and the edges of the five carpels or pistil leaves 

 which by their unio-n have formed the seed vessel. 



In each of the five cells composing the pod is born a row of about 

 ten seeds. As the fruit develops the cell walls become more or less 

 obliterated so that on opening a ripened pod only a single cavity is 

 seen containing five rows of seeds arranged about a central axis. 

 This is illustrated by Fig. 2. At one end of the pod two of the seeds 

 have been removed m order to show the central axis to which the 

 seeds are attached. The pod illustrated by this photograph is five 

 and one-half inches long and three and one-fourth inches thick and 

 contained in all forty-eight seeds. The walls of the pod are from 

 one-half to five-eighths of an inch thick and are composed of two dis- 

 tinct layers an outer firm horny layer of a yellowish brown hue about 

 three-eighths of an inch thick and an inner somewhat softer and 

 lighter colored layer about one-eighth of an inch thick. 



Fig. 3 show^s a cross section of a pod diminished to actual size. 

 This photograph shows very clearly the two layers of which the walls 



