CH. IV] COFFEE, CACAO OR CHOCOLATE, KOLA, ETC. 69 



Brazilian producers, who sell for gold, and pay in silver, will of 

 course be somewhat hardly hit, and other countries may again 

 have a chance to produce coffee to good profit. 



The chances of improvement in coffee cultivation seem to ' 

 lie to a large extent in scientific treatment. Careful study of 

 the different hybrids is required, and also of the methods of 

 grafting one kind of coffee on another, or possibly even on other 

 members of the same natural family. The successful acclima- 

 tisation of Liberian coffee in Java at high levels, even to 

 3000 feet, by taking the seed up a few hundred feet at each 

 generation, also indicates a line which may be useful in 

 hybridisation. Careful selection of seed of the best bearers 

 both as to quality and as to quantity is also urgently needed, 

 and it is possible that even selection of the quickest bearers 

 might prove of advantage, by producing a breed that would 

 yield a crop earlier than those at present cultivated. Green 

 manuring, again, would probably prove of use. 



Cacao, Cocoa, or Chocolate. The cacao tree, Theobroma 

 Cacao, is probably a native of Venezuela and northern South 

 America, and is still largely in cultivation there, but is now 

 probably almost the most widely cultivated of those tropical 

 products in which there is an export trade. The following 

 figures 1 give the export from different countries for the year 

 1904: 



Ecuador 28,433 tons Gold Coast 5,687 tons 



Brazil 23,160 Cuba & Porto Rico 3,266 



St Thomas 20,526 Ceylon 3,254 



Trinidad 18,574 Haiti 2,531 



San Domingo 13,557 Jamaica 1,650 



Venezuela 13,048 Martinique, etc. 1,215 



Grenada 6,226 Dutch East Indies 1,140 



Kamerun, Samoa, Togo 1,109 tons, and other countries below 1000 tons. 



These are large figures, but, allowing 7 or 8 acres to produce 

 a ton, it will be seen that they do not represent very large 

 areas. 



1 From "Gordian." 



