lviii. Timehri. 



Sir Daniel Morris in 1897 visited with me Plantations Coverdon, 

 Land of Canaan, and Yryheid on the Demerara River. Of the former 

 plantation he wrote : — " The condition and upkeep of this property are 

 equal to anything in the West Indies." Sir Daniel noted that the yield 

 of cured cacao on the plantations varied from 160 to 230 lbs. per acre per 

 annum. The production of cacao in 1896-1897 was estimated at 200,000 

 lbs. per annum. I doubt if at present it exceeds 275,000 lbs. a year. 



It is desirable to reproduce here the opinion of that master in 

 economic botany, the late G. S. Jenman, as officially expressed in 1897 

 with regard to the two industries I have just dealt with. It was — " With 

 " due selection of situation and soil few countries are better adapted to 

 " coffee and cacao cultivation than Guiana."' 



In connection with that opinion the Government decided to enquire 

 into the composition of the soils on which our neighbours in Dutch 

 Guiana then successfully carried on their cacao-cultivation and have later 

 developed their very flourishing coffee-estates. The followingis taken 

 from Timehri page 71 of the Volume for 1898, and is an extract from a 

 letter I wrote covering the submission to this Society of copies of 

 analyses of a series of Surinam typical cacao and coffee soils of marked 

 to great fertility ; — 



" The examinations of the soils conclusively shews that they are not 

 " soils similar to these already examined from the interior of this colony, 

 " but are soils very similar in characters and compositions to the alluvial 

 " oues which occur on reaches of our rivers below the belt of sand dunes 

 " and hills. This is a matter of interest and of importance as shewing that 

 " in Dutch Guiana the cultivation of the economic products, cacao and 

 "coffee, are satisfactorily carried on on such soils, and, therefore, similar 

 " enterprises in this colony may be attended with success. These lower 

 " river soils are those alluded to by Dr. Morris in paragraph 4 of his 

 " Report subsidiary to that of the West India Royal Commission/' 



To what is the present stagnation in the cacao-industry due ? To 

 my mind it has been largely due to the fact that the planters of cacao in 

 the seventies to nineties of the last century were wedded and adhered to 

 the Trinidad policy of densely shading the trees with the Bois Immortel 

 or Oronoque trees. Shade which in the climate and on the soil of Trini- 

 dad may be, I do not say it is, beneficial to the cacao-tree is not required, 

 and may be, and probably frequently is. detrimental to the tree in the 

 usually moist and cloudy atmosphere of the lower river-lands of British 

 Guiana. It is also largely due to the stringent demands of the cacao for 

 loamy, well-drained lands. The tree may, and in places does, flourish 

 on insufficiently drained lands, but on them it does not produce satisfac- 

 tory crops of fruit. It is also due to the very salient fact that whilst 

 in the first, second and possibly (bird years after the planting of the 

 young cacao, ground-provisions may be grown betwen the trees the sale 

 of which may meet the costs of upkeep of the heldse and possibly yield 



