238 CACAO 



Year. Quantity. Value. 



1896 23,481,848 1b. £452,141 



1897 23,840,665 „ 532,123 



1898 24,340,960 „ 705,956 



1899 29,225,504 „ 778,679 



1900 30,383,808 „ 852,568 



*1901-2 30,154,768 „ 847,416 



*1902-3 37,585,184 „ 907,531 



*1903-4 36,154,048 „ 897,033 



*1904-5 40,753,776 „ 887,670 



*1905-6 48,416,256 „ 1,041,109 



*1906-7 27,570,928 „ 802,073 



*1907-8 49,730,576 „ 1,786,386 



*1908-9 49,137,088 „ 1,152,285 



Note. — These statistics are taken from Customs' returns. In the years 

 marked by asterisk (*) the official year ends March 31. From 1891 to 1900 

 the years are taken from January to December. 



It will be observed that the increase in the rate of 

 production has been rapid, having practically trebled 

 itself in eighteen years. 



In some measure thislincrease is due to better cultivation, 

 but the major reason is the large increase of the area 

 under cultivation. 



The world's consumption, taken from a table published 

 by Wright, amounted in 1904 to 146,565 tons, and of this 

 60,985 tons were supplied by the West Indian centre. 

 In 1904, therefore, Trinidad supplied 12-67 per cent, of the 

 world's crop, her output for 1904, taken from the table 

 mentioned, being 18,574 tons. 



As will be noted in the table, there is a large amount 

 of variation in the annual crop. This chiefly arises from 

 the occurrence of bad seasons, and seasons giving early 

 and late crops, which may run into the following year 

 or leave a part of their crop in the preceding. 



Taking the mean of the last two years (1907-8 and 

 1908-9) in the above table and reducing the pounds to 

 tons, we find the annual yield in Trinidad was over 22,000 

 tons, an increase of over 4000 tons annually since 1904, 

 of a value of nearly one and a half million pounds sterling, 

 a fact which gives Trinidad the lead in cacao cultivation 

 throughout the West Indies and Central America, and 

 unless Brazil and Ecuador have progressed at the same rate. 



