THE CULTIVATION OF COCOA 149 



that in most countries shade trees are considered 

 necessary and that attempts to cultivate cocoa without 

 shade have failed, while in the places just mentioned 

 cocoa is successfully cultivated without shade ? l 



Most planters and authors on cocoa culture seem 

 to think that the use of the shade trees is pri- 

 marily to afford shade to the cocoa tree. They 

 consider cocoa to be a plant which in its wild state 

 grows under the shade of the higher forest trees and 

 which w r ill not thrive when exposed to the untempered 

 sun. This may be the case in some countries, but the 

 examples of cocoa grown without shade prove that it 

 cannot be regarded as a general rule. 



There is another fact which shows that this is not 

 the primary use of shade trees. If we examine the 

 trees used for shade, we are at once struck by the fact 

 that in every country where cocoa is carefully and 

 systematically grown one or two kinds of trees are 

 considered to be the most suitable as shade trees and 

 are generally used. Other kinds are considered less 

 suitable, and all the rest as quite unsuitable for 

 the purpose. Yet the shade afforded by these different 

 kinds of trees is in the majority of cases the same. 

 How is it possible, then, that two kinds of trees, 

 affording practically the same shade, are still so different 

 in value as shade trees for cocoa ? 



The way in which the plant is cultivated in Grenada 

 without shade is instructive, and gives the key to the 

 puzzle. As is the case everywhere else, in Grenada the 

 young plants are cultivated under the shade of bananas, 

 which are kept growing during the first three or four 

 years ; the cocoa is planted closely, at a distance of 9 to 

 12 feet. But much more care is given to the tillage of 

 the soil and to manuring than in most other countries. 

 On some plantations forking is done every year ; on 

 others hoeing is preferred, but tillage is never neglected. 

 As a rule, the cultivation is heavily manured with pen 



1 See Bulletin No. 7 of the Department of Agriculture, Surinam, Sept. 

 1906, noticed by De Wildeman in La Semaine coloniale. 



