CHAPTER V 

 "Roads and Draining. Temperature and Rainfall. 



ROADS. 



NT, \J , 



HE laying out of Roads for a Cacao estate should 

 always be one of the first considerations of the 

 planter. If the crop he grows is difficult in the 

 first place to get to the curing house, and in the 

 second place difficult to get to the market, it will 

 easily be seen that, what would in other cases be 

 a fair amount of profit, can owing to difficulty of 

 transport, be easily frittered away. In laying out an estate 

 'therefore the proprietor should reserve traces at right angles to 

 each other for roads to be used for the purpose of collecting his 

 crop, and ascertain that the land he selects is near to a good 

 main road or railway, so that his produce can be easily placed 

 upon the market. 



With estates on the plains, roads are of course easily made, 

 but if situated on a hill side, to make roads is somewhat more 

 difficult, but still even here it is better to allow plenty of space 

 and make good roads at once; so as to give easy access to every 

 part of a plantation. Hill side roads are not difficult to make, 

 once the principle is understood, but. as with pruning, the work 

 can hardly be described, and is best learnt by practice under the 

 tuition of an experienced hand. 



The land taken up by roads, is by some planters thought to 

 be wasted, and many are satisfied with planting the whole 

 ground without providing anything which can be definitely 

 called a road. The economy of having a proper system of roads 

 is however easily understood by those who have been used to 

 systems of the kind, and the loss on the number of trees which 

 would be planted on the land occupied by a road is more than 

 recouped to the planter, by the accessibility the roads aiford when 

 pursuing any of the operations of cultivation or harvesting crop. 

 We often see plantations crowded with trees among which the 

 mule or donkey is allowed to struggle with its panniers" or 

 " crook' 1 when taking off' crop ; regardless of the many wounds 



