CACAO PRODUCTION AND SALE 101 



and this, with a soft humid atmosphere, makes an 

 ideal home for cacao. 



The bean, introduced in 1822, was not cultivated 

 with diligence till fifty years ago. To-day the two 

 islands, which together have not half the area of Surrey, 

 grow 32,000 metric tons of cacao a year, or about one- 

 tenth of the world's production.* The income of a 



Rolling Cacao, Gold Coast. 



Reproduced by permission of the Editor of " West Africa." 



single planter, once a poor peasant, has amounted 

 to hundreds of thousands sterling. 



Dotted over the islands, here nestling on a moun- 

 tain side, there overlooking some blue inlet of the sea, 

 are more than two hundred plantations, or rocas, 

 whose buildings look like islands in a green sea of cacao 



* The Gordian's estimate for the amount exported in 191 9 



is '40, 766 tons. 



