DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 



In Guam sappan wood (Biancaea sappan) grows readily, and soon forms hedges or 

 thickets of a good height, which serve as excellent wind-breaks. The plantation 

 must be kept free from weeds, especially while the plants are still young. In Guam 

 the weeds are kept down with a thrust hoe, or fusino.a Rows of taro or bananas 

 are often planted between those of the cacao, and left while the plants are still 

 young. The bananas not only produce fruit, but, growing readily and rapidly, they 

 act as shade plants to the tender young cacao. As the cacao matures, these plants 

 are removed. The custom of planting shade trees, called "madre-cacao," is not so 

 prevalent in Guam as in America; & but in exposed situations trees of gabgab 

 (Erythrina indica), lemae, or breadfruit, and dugdug, or fertile breadfruit all 

 quick-growing trees may be planted to shade the plants, care being taken to keep 

 the lower boughs cut off, so as not to interfere with the growth of the cacao. 



In many parts of the island where the soil is thin, with a substratum of coral, or 

 where the soil is poor, the cacao should be planted in holes 2 feet in depth and 

 in diameter, filled with good rich soil. This method is called " holing," and is used 

 in many tropical countries for other plants as well as for cacao. Dead weeds and the 

 refuse from the pods after the seeds have been taken out form an excellent manure, 

 and should be placed about the trees or buried near their roots. This practice, how- 

 ever, should not be followed if any pods show evidence of disease. In such an event 

 all infected pods should be carefully burned. 



Only one stem is allowed to grow until the tree has reached the height of a meter, 

 after which three main branches are allowed to remain. The plant should be kept 

 free from suckers, which sometimes sprout out even after the main branches have 

 appeared. In about three years from planting the trees will flower, but it is best 

 to remove the flowers from young trees, as it is injurious to them to bear fruit before 

 the fourth or fifth year. In Guam the trees bear fruit almost continuously, but there 

 are two principal crops each year. The fruit is then gathered in quantities, some of 

 the best pods selected for seed, and the rest of the seeds are dried and stored or 

 made at once into chocolate. No cacao is exported, except, perhaps, a little sent by 

 natives to friends in Manila or given to people leaving the island, as is the custom in 

 Guam. 



In gathering the pods the stalks should be cut halfway between the pod and the 

 tree, care being taken not to tear the bark, as is often done if the pod be removed 

 by twisting; for it is in the bark, at the base of the old peduncle that the adven- 

 titious buds push forth which produce the crop of the following year. The beans 

 are freed from pulp and gummy matter, dried in the sun, parched, and ground on 

 stone slabs called "metates" with a cylindrical stone rolling-pin called a "mano," 

 just as maize is ground for making tortillas. The ground paste is formed into balls 

 or lozenge-shaped disks, each large enough to make one cup of chocolate. Chocolate 

 as made in Guam is thickened with flour or arrowroot. It is of fine flavor and is not 

 adulterated in any way, except by the addition of sugar and flour. The natives scorn 

 imported chocolate, saying that it tastes like medicine. The custom of chocolate 

 drinking is universal among them. They drink it in the late afternoon, serving it 

 quite hot, and offering it to visitors as a matter of etiquette, often accompanying it 

 with sponge cake or poundcake, which they have been taught to make by foreigners, 

 and which they call "keke." 



Cacao beans are sometimes kept in jars and allowed to "sweat" or undergo a sort 

 of fermentation, which improves their flavor, but this custom is not universal. 

 Many families, after having dried the beans in the sun, keep them until required for 

 use, when they toast them as we do coffee, grind them on the family metate, and 

 make them into chocolate. Chocolate made from the newly ground bean is especially 

 rich and aromatic. 



See Gardens. 



&See Cook, Shade in Coffee Culture, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Botany, Bull. No. 

 25, p. 8, 1901. 



