70 COCONUTS, KERNELS, AND CACAO. 







Guiana also cultivate this product. In the last-named 

 colony, a forest of the wild plant was discovered about 

 1734 on the banks of a tributary of the Yari River. From 

 this forest seeds were taken and the industry started. 



Just before the present war considerable areas, amount- 

 ing to about 5,000 acres in all, were planted with cacao 

 in Uganda, and the planters were very hopeful of results, 

 judging by previous experiments on a smaller scale. 

 During the past four years, however, such results as 

 have been forthcoming have not fulfilled expectations, 

 the yields not coming up to what had been expected. 



Uganda, however, like most other planting countries, 

 has suffered during the war from the fact that consider- 

 able numbers of plantation owners and managers have 

 been on active service. In addition, labour has been 

 considerably affected, and planters in the meantime 

 have been attracted by the apparently better prospects 

 attaching to Para rubber. 



In the Old World Robert Louis Stevenson was an 

 early pioneer of the cacao industry in Samoa.* The 

 Dutch East Indies and Ceylon also produce large quan- 

 tities. In Africa, the islands of S. Thome and Principe 

 were for many years the most famous, and Messrs. 

 Cadbury at one time bought most of their cacao from 

 this source. From 1908 for some years, however, these 

 islands were boycotted by many firms, owing to the 

 conditions of slavery said to exist. The Portuguese 

 Government have now improved all faulty conditions. 

 From 1911, however, British West Africa (especially the 

 Gold Coast Colony) became the principal cacao-producing 

 country in the world, the quantity produced that year 



* Vailima Letters. 



