182 CACAO 



more about the chemical contents of the cacao bean than 

 either planters or consumers, although they have not been 

 particularly anxious, for business reasons, to publish their 

 results. That they possess this knowledge is shown by the 

 admirable way in which they grade the material they buy 

 for producing any quality or kind demanded by the public ; 

 the difference in the various qualities (including flavour, 

 colour, and aroma) being maintained at fixed standards 

 year by year. 



Wright continues with a paragraph stating : 



That it is hard enough to identify all the VarietieB on an estate, even when 

 leaves, flowers, fruit, and seeds are at hand, and it must be much more difficult 

 to determine constant chemical charaoterlBtios for the ever-changing forms 

 of cacao under cultivation. 



The writer assumes that he does not mean that the changes 

 occur in individual trees year by year, but that in planting 

 new seedling forms the variation is increasing annually. 

 With the latter the writer concurs, but with the former he 

 cannot agree, as under his extended observations a seedling, 

 once established, never changes but remains the same in all 

 respects as an animal born into the world, and suffers 

 similar trials as an animal would have to pass, until its 

 life is ended ; and also dies an individual with special 

 characters of its own, permanently and practically un- 

 alterable, though showing plainly a family likeness to its 

 progenitors of several previous generations. " Sporting " * 

 in cacao is the exception, not the rule, and in our experience 

 does not frequently occur. 



Great variation is now generally admitted to take place 

 among cultivated cacao. The Forastero of one place is 

 not the exact Forastero of another, owing to its coming into 

 contact with differing strains and apparently inter- 

 breeding with them. Where strains of fine quality have 

 been introduced, these have in some cases produced seed- 

 lings of improved character and, among these, in fact 

 among all the various strains, cacao-trees of high quality 

 may be found capable and worthy of becoming selected 



• " Sporting " is a deviation from the type which may occur in a single 

 branch. 



