COCOA. 185 



plantation, they begin by establishing a good system of shade. Oc- 

 casionally a certain number of trees, with large and leafy crowns, 

 are left standing ; but in general certain plants, which grow rapidly, 

 are had recourse to as a means of procuring shade. In the neigh- 

 borhood of Caraccas they shade with the erylhrina umbrosa ; and 

 in some plantations they take advantage of the shade of the ba- 

 nana ; finally, the two modes of procuring shade are frequently con- 

 ioined. 



In the province of Guayaquil they plant the beans of the cocoa 

 directly. In Venezuela they prefer raising the plant in a nursery, 

 which is always selected of the most fertile soil, and deeply trenched. 

 The seeds are sown immediately before the setting in of the rains, 

 and germination takes place in from eight to ten days. In a good 

 soil, at two years of age the cocoa-plant will have attained a height 

 of nearly 3 feet ; it is then pruned hy having two of its upper branch- 

 es removed, and is transplanted. In the upper valley of the Rio 

 Magdalena, where there are many valuable cocoa-groves, the sow- 

 ing is performed in ground well prepared and protected by screens 

 made with palm leaves ; here the young cocoas are transplan!«3d 

 when they are six months old. During the whole of the time that 

 the plants remain in this nursery they continue to be well shaded ; 

 and they are watered once a week by water poured upon the 

 screens. 



The tree seldom comes into flower under thirty months old. I 

 have known planters who always destroyed these first flowers, and 

 who never suffered any fruit to ripen before the fourth year, and 

 that too under the most favorable circumstances in regard to climate, 

 in situations where the mean temperature was 27 5° C., between 81° 

 and 82° Fahr. In less favorable situations it is necessary to wait 

 six or seven years before gathering the first fruits of a cocoa planta- 

 tion. There are few arborescent plants which have so small a flower, 

 and especially a flower so disproportionate to the size of its fruit, as 

 the cocoa-tree. The diameter of a bud, measured at the moment of 

 its expansion, does not exceed 4 millimetres — -0.157 of an English 

 inch. The flowers appear principally upon the trunk of the tree 

 itself; they rarely show themselves beyond the middle of the larger 

 branches ; occasionally they appear upon the roots which happen to 

 be above the ground. 



To receive the young plants grown in the nursery, the ground 

 properly shaded is first freed from weeds. Trenches are then cut, 

 either to season the ground or to irrigate it when requisite. The 

 young plants are set in rows at regular and considerable distances, 

 which vary, however, with the quality of the soil ; and the general 

 opinion is, that the better the soil the greater should be the space 

 from tree to tree. Thus in the valley of del Tuy, in the neighbor- 

 hood of Puerto Cabello, the cocoa-trees are set at the distance of 

 about 16 feet apart in the best soils, and at the distance of about 13 

 feet only in soils of inferior quality. In the windward islands, where 

 the soil is generally less fertile th'an on the continent, the trees 

 Btand at the distance of from 6 or 7 to 9 or 10 feet apart. A reasoo 



16* 



