290 CACAO 



to work and to fight. I had enough to do to keep him away from his remini- 

 scences of many fights in the land of Castro, and to confine him to my subject 

 — " How he formed his estate." After his stock of Oaramhaa had been almost 

 exhausted, he deigned to give me the following : 



2. Petitioning and Surveying. — " When I arrived here I immediately called 

 upon my old countryman, Pedro Quitacalzon. He very wisely advised me 

 to go in for some land and so form an estate and be somebody in Trinidad. 

 He explained to me how I must first of all petition for the land, then have it 

 surveyed, and after must pay taxes on it. The trouble this petitioning and 

 surveying cost nearly drove me mad. Indeed, Senor, my headache, £umost 

 perpetual, dates from that time. The felling of the virgin forest was nothing 

 compared to it. 



" Having got my Crown grant, one fine Monday morning, after having been 

 somewhat fortified by some good sancocho, and encouraged by a good glass of 

 aguadiente I started with a new axe and a ' Gilpin ' cutlass, Quixote-like, to 

 fight the mighty muro. Moral courage, indeed ! Amongst thorns, wasps, 

 snakes, &c. I had to perform my first month's labour in talaing or felling the 

 vmderwood. I had ialaed in that month half a quarr^e of land or more. Then 

 I waited for about three weeks, when I ' put my shoxdder to the wheel ' and 

 essayed my strength against the monarch of the forest and its courtiers. That 

 done, I waited three weeks more before I started to bum. 



3. Burning. — " Having got the land surveyed, &c., I thought my troubles 

 were over. Far from it. I did not know of the Fire Licence Ordinance. My 

 friend Quitacalzon advised me to take out a licence. I have to say now that 

 it is one of the few laws made in Trinidad which benefits everybody, though it 

 is to be regretted that a few people can stiU manage to evade this law. I didn't 

 like that Ordinance then, nor does Beharidass now. I set fire to my lands at 

 the finishing of the dry season of that year. Being alone, the fire nearly 

 escaped me twice, but I easily stopped it. My method is to beat it down near 

 the trace with banana leaves. I then had to make boucans the second part of 

 the burning process, which consists in collecting and piling up the larger wood 

 which was not burnt before, and firing them. After this I had my field, Senor, 

 almost bare. There was nothing much left on it to interfere and give trouble 

 when I should begin planting and draining. I waited for some days, giving 

 time for the earth to cool down, and then began planting. 



4. Lining and Planting. — " I first started on the difficult task of lining and 

 putting in pickets at 12 feet from each other. "This is a special art in itself. 

 At the foot of each picket I planted two or three cassava roots at an equal 

 distance from each other, say, half a foot. Then I put in close to the pickets 

 two or three cocoa-seeds. These seeds I took from the middle of a half-ripe 

 cocoa-pod of the best quaUty — the biggest seeds in the biggest pods I could 

 find.* The cassava roots were planted for two obvious reasons. First, to 

 serve as a shade for the growing cocoa-tree; and, secondly, to get a crop of 

 cassava in a few months' time. Then I put in some figs, plantains, and tannias 

 midway between the rows of pickets. In some bad spots, where the land was 

 poor, I planted double the quantity of figs, and here and there I planted the 

 bitter cassava and the maize, whilst I threw away a few seeds of the pumpkin, 

 cucumber, and ochros about the Add. All these served me as shades as well! 

 Then I planted the madre del cacao at a distance of 25 feet from each other 

 between the rows of pickets or ventana where I had put in the cocoa seeds. 

 Nowadays, Amigo, I see that rice is one of the first things planted in a new 

 field, and I also observed in several Agricultural Contracts that the planting 

 of this food is prohibited. I have planted some in my time, too, and did not 

 see how greatly it affected the land. When the land is good, Compadre, nothing 

 will affect it, and once it is bad, well, get your guano at the lowest possible cost, 

 and be prepared to mortgage your estate and say Buen Naje. 



* A good method of selection by seed. — J. H, H. 



