AMONG THE GOLD COAST COCOA FARMS 47 



After following our guide for about a mile and a 

 half along a Bush trail and through trackless belts of 

 cocoa trees, we suddenly come upon a typical harvest 

 scene on a Gold Coast cocoa farm a family party of 

 men, women, and pickins are leisurely helping each other 

 to get in the crop. 



HARVESTING COCOA. In gathering cocoa pods, great 

 care must be taken not to injure the " cushion " of 

 flowers to which they are attached, for damage to 

 flowers means, of course, less chance of pods forming 

 for a succeeding crop. The little stalks by which the 

 pods are suspended are so short, and the tiny flowers 

 grow so close to them, that a very little carelessness 

 in harvesting the crops may do much harm to the 

 trees. Care must be taken, too, in selecting the pods 

 to be harvested; they should not be under-ripe or over- 

 ripe, for the quality of the cocoa will be impaired if 

 the beans are taken from any but just nicely ripe 

 pods. 



The pods are detached singly by severing their 

 stalks. Those which can be reached from the ground are 

 sometimes plucked by hand; a firm hold is taken of the 

 pod, and the stalk is broken by a turn of the wrist. A 

 better method is to hold the pod in one hand and cut 

 through the stalk with a sharp-edged tool. The pods 

 on the higher branches are detached by means of an 

 improvised or specially designed picking implement. 



The men of the party we are watching are doing the 

 picking. They use a cutlass for severing the stalks 

 of the low-hanging pods ; for detaching the pods aloft, 

 one of them is armed with a long piece of bamboo to the 

 top of which is tied an old jack-knife, and the other 

 with an up-to-date specimen of picking implement, 

 consisting of a long handle of broomstick style, which 



