THE CULTIVATION OF COCOA 97 



wood. Accordingly, the dry season is usually chosen 

 for clearing the forest, for it is always necessary to leave 

 the wood lying in the sun for a few days if it is to burn 

 well. 



In some countries, in clearing the forest, the bigger 

 trees or special kinds of trees are left standing in order 

 to give immediate shade to the young plants, but this 

 method is not generally adopted, and is certainly not 

 advisable. Only very special kinds of trees are suitable 

 as shade trees, and it seldom occurs that these are to 

 be found in the forest ; moreover, in a good plantation 

 the planter wants his shade trees to stand at regular dis- 

 tances apart ; and, finally, the shade given by forest trees 

 is not the kind needed by the young cocoa plants, which 

 require the greater protection afforded by temporary 

 shade plants such as bananas or tannias. Hence it is 

 not advisable to plant cocoa in old coffee fields, leaving 

 the shade trees standing, as is generally done in Java. 

 When the cocoa plants grow up under the only shade 

 which these trees afford, they result in short trees with an 

 irregular, bushy or compact branch system, and with 

 a stem liable to split when the branches bear much 

 fruit (Fig. 35). Bananas, also, do no better in such 

 circumstances, for they have only a poor and slow 

 growth under shade. It is therefore advisable to cut 

 away the old shade trees and to plant a new tem- 

 porary shade when a coffee field has to be changed into 

 a cocoa field. But of course this involves a greater 

 expenditure. 



The cocoa tree is very sensitive to wind. If, there- 

 fore, the piece of land chosen is bounded by open land, 

 by savanna, or by a river, on the side of the prevailing 

 wind, it is advisable and sometimes necessary to leave a 

 border of forest as a wind-break. Thus in Surinam, for 

 instance, wherever cocoa is cultivated near the riverside, 

 the plantation is never extended close up to the river 

 at any rate not when the latter runs on the windward 

 side (i.e. on the east), and a border of forest is always 

 left along the bank. 



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