CULTIVATION 
Cacao is seldom cultivated in the West Indies in the 
sense in which that term is usually applied. In many plan- 
tations the cultivation consists entirely in cutting the weeds 
with machetes or cutlasses, although the more progressive 
nlanfers fork the soil occasionally. Such a thing as plowing 
and cultivating in a cacao plantation is practically unknown. 
This is of course natural in view of the methods employed, 
It would be impossible to plow land full of stumps and 
roots, and by the time these obstructions have disappeared 
the soil could not be plowed without doing great injury to 
the roots of the cacao trees. As to forking, it is naturally 
costly and something that would never be thought of in 
some of the Islands. It is almost unknown in Porto Rico, 
Santo Domingo and Cuba. There the hoe is used to some 
extent but aside from that it is either machine cultivation 
or no cultivation, That the method of weeding with cutlass 
and forking occasionally is to a degree successful is evident 
from the number of plantations that are giving fairly good 
returns and receiving no other treatment. That it is not 
successful in all cases is evident from the number of plan- 
tations suffering from the lack of real cultivation. Culti- 
vation in which the soil is broken up to some depth and 
the surface kept pulverized is beneficial because it admits 
air and liberates plant food, and especially because it con- 
serves the soil moisture. Where the rainfall is abundant or 
where the ground is thickly covered with vegetable matter 
the soil may retain its desirable physical character without 
being cultivated, but soils deficient in humus and subject to 
periodical droughts are of but little value unless they are 
