THE CULTIVATION OF COCOA 103 



and when the soil can afterwards drain out properly. 

 Wright l gives some good examples of this condition : 

 " Cacao trees, when once established, appear to be able 

 to stand occasional floods. Several acres of mature 

 cacao at Peradeniya are subject to floods once or twice a 

 year ; the water rises to a height of three or more feet 

 above the bases of the trees, arid remains in a similar 

 condition for a few days ; nevertheless, these plots 

 yield fairly good harvests of two to three hundred 

 pounds of cacao per acre per annum. In the Amazon 

 valley cacao trees often grow wild in districts which are 

 periodically flooded, and the cacao trees, it is said, have 

 their stem under water for as long as three months at a 

 time. The same occurs for periods of a few days on 

 some plantations of healthy cacao in Venezuela and in 

 several parts of Ceylon." How long the trees will 

 stand such a flood depends on the quality not only of 

 the soil, but also of the water. On compact retentive 

 soils, the cocoa will not stand floods so well as on porous 

 soils with a smaller water-retaining power ; and standing 

 water does greater harm to the plants than water which 

 is continually moving more or less. 



Variety to plant. In establishing a plantation the 

 planter will obviously try to plant the finest variety of 

 cocoa producing the best quality of product. From 

 this point of view the Criollo and the pentagona would 

 always have the preference. Unfortunately, these fine 

 varieties have certain drawbacks. They are so particular 

 about climate and soil that they only thrive in a few 

 countries. It may be said, speaking broadly, that only 

 in Venezuela and Java is the Criollo cultivated on 

 anything like a large scale, while no large plantations at 

 all of pentagona seem to exist. On a small scale the 

 Criollo is cultivated in several countries, especially 

 Nicaragua, Guatemala, San Salvador, Samoa and 

 Madagascar. 



Further, the area planted with the Criollo variety 

 does not increase. In some countries it has already 



1 Wright, Cocoa, p. 61. 



