THE CULTIVATION OF COCOA 189 



primers must therefore be a select one, consisting only 

 of a small number of skilled and competent workmen. 

 If the planter has not enough skilled labourers to get 

 his whole plantation pruned in time i.e. before the 

 end of the dry season he will do* better to leave some 

 fields unpruned than to allow the work to be done by 

 incompetent labourers, who would probably cut away 

 twigs which ought to remain. 



It is .hardly necessary to point out that, in cleaning, 

 the dead and diseased twigs and branches, as well as 

 the watershoots, must be cut quite close to the branch 

 or stem to which they are attached, so as to leave no 

 stump. Moreover, both cleaners and pruners must care- 

 fully cover the wounds with coal-tar, so as to close them 

 against parasites such as fungi and borers. 



Prevention of disease. Diseases occur in all cocoa- 

 growing countries, but in the most important of these 

 (Ecuador, Venezuela, San Thome and Brazil) the diseases 

 have not yet been the subject of any important investi- 

 gations, and consequently we are still wholly ignorant 

 about the cause of most of them. Rational methods of 

 preventing and eradicating fungus diseases and insect 

 pests have not . yet been arrived at, and in most cases 

 the planters have to help themselves. The result is, of 

 course, that the prevention of disease does not take such 

 an important part in regular plantation work as it should 

 do ; sometimes, even, hardly any precautionary measures 

 are taken at all. 



In those countries, however, where the diseases 

 have been properly investigated, special precautionary 

 measures have been discovered for the prevalent 

 diseases. Thus in Surinam the continual removing 

 of the "krulloten" ("witch-brooms") and "hardened" 

 pods by a special gang of labourers forms part of the 

 regular work of a well-managed plantation. In Java 

 every year, at the end of the harvest, when the number 

 of fruits attacked by the moth-borer is increasing, the 

 "rampassing" (the picking and destroying of all the 

 remaining fruit) is carefully done. In Ceylon the 



