■220 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO BULLETIN. [XIX. 4, 



It has been suggested by the Mycologist of the Imperial Department 

 of Agriculture that a two-walled box stuffed with dry grass or some such 

 material would be a useful article to experiment with in which to ferment 

 small quantities of cacao. 



In fermenting small lots of say thirty to forty pounds of cacao it will 

 be found that the maximum temperature is usually reached at about the 

 third or fourth day and begins to drop fairly rapidly after. With large 

 lots of cacao such as are handled by estates the maximum temperature 

 is I believe not reached till the fifth or sixth daj- and the beans have 

 therefore a longer period of fermentation. 



There is room for much useful work in assisting and instructing the 

 peasant regarding the fermentation of his crop and its preparation for 

 market. 



Preparation of the estate product is done on much the same lines as 

 in Trinidad with the exception that no clay is used. 



The drying trays are usually in the form of sliding drawers under the 

 Boucans or sometimes a combination of sliding drawers and roofs. There 

 are also installed on a number of the larger estates artificial Gordon 

 rotary driers, made by John Gordon and Company, Broad 8treet, London. 



PESTS. 



I will now pass on to discuss a few of the commoner pests of cacao in 

 Grenada and the methods adopted for keeping them under control. 



Theips 

 is the most widely distributed and most virulent pest of cacao in Grenada 

 and has at times caused great anxiety to the planter. Expert advice has 

 been sought on many occasions and the pest has been so thoroughly 

 investigated that the planter is now quite conversant with the mode of 

 tackling it and usually puts such knowledge into practice at the first 

 signs of an outbreak, 



Thrips are probably always present in cacap fields and when suitable 

 conditions for their propagation prevail (usually tliose unsuitable for the 

 growth of the cacao tree) they assume epidemic form. They are minute 

 insects which cause damage to the tree by sucking the leaves and thus 

 bringing about defoliation. A badly infected plot will be rendered 

 practically leafless. If no control measures be exercised and successive 

 attacks be made on new flushes of leaves the trees may be killed out- 

 right. The pods are also usually infested, especially in the dry season. 

 The infection on these can easily be distinguished by the brownish 

 markings which in bad cases may completely alter the appearance of 

 the pods. This causes much loss of time in picking and some loss or 

 detriment to the cured product may result from the inability to 

 distinguish when such pods are ripe, and unripe pods may thus be 

 gathered together with the ripe and thus lower the grade of the cured 

 beans. 



Thrips attacks are usually worse after the heaviest rains although 

 minor attacks are reported throughout the year. All such attacks are 

 usually found in conjunction with some bad condition of the soil, viz., 

 lack of drainage or manure or a poor condition of the cultivation. The 



