434 COCOA 



We may expect that the production will rise again, 

 since a remedy has been found for the witch-broom 

 disease. The conditions of soil and climate are suitable 

 for cocoa culture, and before the witch-broom disease 

 reduced the yield per acre to 30 kilograms or even less, 

 cocoa-growing was a very paying business in Surinam. 



In some respects, however, the conditions make the 

 work in this colony more difficult than in other cocoa- 

 growing countries. 



Every one who visits Surinam for the first time is 

 surprised to see plantations established on alluvial 

 soil, near the sea and on sea-level, each plantation 

 surrounded by a strong embankment, to protect it from 

 being flooded, and provided with a wide system of 

 draining canals. 



Preuss wrote in his book : l 



In opening this country, the Dutch have accomplished an 

 extraordinarily difficult and a splendid work. Perhaps no other 

 people would have had the courage as well as the ability to drain 

 the whole country by an extensive system of canals, and to protect 

 it by means of strong embankments, with sluices, from being 

 flooded by the sea or by flood-waters. 



Indeed, this circumstance makes agriculture in 

 Surinam a difficulty unknown in other countries. 



All the plantations, with the exception of two or 

 three, are situated along the rivers (Fig. 127) : the 

 greatest number is to be found along the Commewijne 

 Kiver ; a good number are situated along the Surinam 

 Eiver, and a few along the Saramacca, the Cottica, the 

 Nickerie and the Para Kivers. 



These rivers are all broad and slow-flowing streams 

 and subject to the tide-movement of the sea. The differ- 

 ence in height between high-tide and low-tide measures 

 about 4 feet when neap-tide, 8 feet when spring-tide. 

 With high-tide the level of the river is above the level 

 of the plantations ; with low-tide it is under this level. 



It is therefore clear that every plantation must be 



1 Preuss, Expedition, p. 13. 



