48 



COCOA : ALL ABOUT IT. 



Prior to 1S31, the home consumption of Cocoa amounted to 

 less than 400,000 lbs. per annum, but sixty years has wrought a 

 marvellous change, which may best be indicated by the following 

 figures : — 



CLEARANCES OF RAW COCOA FOR CONSUMPTION IN GREAT BRITAIN 



AND IREL.AND. 



Home Consumption. 

 283,599 lbs. 

 319,941 „ 



393,715 



Navy. 



239,680 lbs. 



403,200 „ 

 582,400 „ 



It is difficult to obtain returns of the consumption of Cocoa 

 in Great Britain and Ireland prior to 1822, and a curious feature 

 of those returns up to 1830 is that the home consumption and 

 that of His Majesty's Navy show that the proportion absorbed by 

 the Navy was larger than that for home consumption. 



Guayaquil was the largest producing country in the world, as 

 it is now, its exports averaging twelve million pounds per annum 

 between 1834-6; Spain at this time was the principal consuming 

 country in the world, taking by far the greater proportion of these 

 exports, while England depended chiefly upon its own possessions 

 in the British West Indies and British Guiana. These imports 

 averaged between 1833-36 1,350,000 lbs., the chief proportion 

 of which came from Trinidad. 



