192S.\ CACAO CULTIVATION IN GRENADA. 219 



Owing to the close planting it is difficult to prune in such a manner 

 as to prevent interlacing of the branches and such a condition 

 consequently usually exists. Chupons, or suckers as they are called in 

 Grenada, are only allowed to grow when a renew to the tree is required. 



BEDDING. 



This term is applied in Grenada to the method used for disposal of 

 the surplus leaves. When the soil becomes thickly strewn with leaves 

 the practice is to rake them together into heaps and dig holes a few feet 

 square into which they are put and the soil thrown back upon them. 

 This has the advantage of returning all leaves, etc., to the soil and thus 

 increasing the stock of humus. This system is generally recognised 

 amongst planters as being one of the cheapest and best ways of cleaning 

 up the plantation. On heavy soils, under which head the majority of 

 those in Grenada may be classed, holes of this kind unless supplied with 

 an outlet into a drain are apt to form water pockets which on flat lands 

 may prove troublesome. The broken pods are also often buried in the 

 same way. 



A few persons adopt a system of raking the leaves away from the 

 trunks of the trees and burning them under careful supervision. This 

 is not a system to be recommended as by its practice much vegetable 

 matter is destroyed which if retained in the soil would form valuable 

 humus. When practised on the same fields for successive years it must 

 have an ultimate detrimental effect on the cultivation. Another point 

 is that unless done under very careful supervision, the result may be a 

 scorching of the trees. On the other hand this method has an advantage 

 in fields infested with mealy bug, in that the leaves falling to the ground 

 are often thickly covered with the pest which can, as I have observed, 

 migrate back to the plant. It is very doubtful however whether the good 

 done in this way can in any way counter-balance the harm caused by 

 the loss of vegetable matter to the soil. 



^o^ 



METHODS OF SMALL PROPRIETORS. 



In my remarks on cultivation I have confined myself chiefly to 

 methods adopted by the large estate proprietor in Grenada, but it must 

 be remembered that there is also a very large peasant proprietary whose 

 numbers run into thousands and in the majority of cases it cannot be 

 said that the peasant pays the same attention to his cultivation as the 

 larger planter. 



The peasants' product as prepared for market is also not generally of 

 as high a standard as that prepared by the estates, principally for the 

 reason that he is anxious to realise ready money and will not wait to 

 -allow the beans the necessary period of fermentation. 



Another reason is that the quantity of wet cacao that he gathers at 

 one particular time is so small that unless dealt with very carefully only 

 imperfect fermentation takes place. Some of the smaller proprietors are 

 now making efforts to prepare their crop for market in a better manner 

 and the low prices paid for cacao this year have shown them how really 

 necessary this is as at certain times during the last few months 

 unfermented cacao was practically unsaleable. 



