COCOA. 



13 



to mix with the perfumed but drier kinds grown in Caracas. The 

 export in 1874, from French Guiana, was but 66,000 lbs., and there 

 are 231 hectares under culture, which is little more than the produce 

 in 1836 from 197 hectares, when 55,400 lbs. were shipped. 



A little cocoa is grown in the Mauritius. Some small quantity is 

 still produced in Eeunion, of a good quality, the Caracas sort. Cocoa 

 used to be grown in the island in connection with coffee. 



Production in Venezuela. — Venezuelan, or, as it is generally termed, 

 Caracas cocoa, has ever been considered the best of all that is pro- 

 duced upon the American soil ; although it was from Mexico that the 

 bean was first imported into Spain, large quantities of it were 

 subsequently exported from the Venezuelan port of Maracaibo to the 

 Mexican port of Vera Cruz. The cocoa tree flourishes best when 

 planted in a damp, level soil, and begins to produce fruit when about 

 five or six years old, its yield being usually about one pound at that 

 age ; it does not, however, attain its full bearing capability until it 

 has attained its eighth year, at least in the neighbourhood of the sea 

 coast; and in some places, such as the Guique districts upon the 

 Lake of Valencia, in the neighbouring province of Carabobo, it does 

 not attain its full yielding power until it has reached its ninth year. 

 Experienced planters residing in the capital (Caracas), however, state 

 that, with proper care, it may be made to cover the expenses of its 

 cultivation from its sixth year. 



The regular periods for gathering in the crops are in June and 

 December, denominated the " crop of St. John " and " Christmas 

 crop ; " but when the plants have attained maturity, the gathering of 

 scattered pods is carried on almost daily. 



The production of cocoa has not only greatly diminished in Vene- 

 zuela, owing to the perpetual civil warfare prevailing, but its quality 

 has materially deteriorated owing to the introduction into the country 

 of seed, commonly termed " Trinitario," from the island of Trinidad, 

 which, although infinitely more prolific than the native seed, produces 

 a bean somewhat bitter in taste, and very inferior, as regards essential 

 oil and richness of flavour, to that produced from the latter. The 

 difference between the two can indeed be detected at once by the most 

 casual observer, and the scale of prices at once confirms it. 



Ineffectual efforts were made to guard against the deterioration of 

 the native cocoa, enjoying so high a reputation in foreign countries by 

 the introduction of the Trinidad seed, to the extent of a proposition 

 being made by the Minister of the Interior and Justice to the Con- 

 gress, in the year 1850, that any person detected in introducing the 

 same into the eastern ports of the Eepublic in constant communication 

 with the island of Trinidad should be subjected to corporal chastise- 

 ment. 



Some interesting statistical information connected with the culti- 

 vation of the cocoa tree in Venezuela in former times was supplied 

 by a Caracas newspaper, in the year 1838, which obtained its 

 data on the subject from a pamphlet, also published there in the 

 year 1765, by a commercial association formed in the Basque Pro- 

 vinces of Spain, under -the name of the Guipuzcuanian Trading 

 Company, and which states that the export of cocoa from Venezuela 

 during thirty years, viz. from 1701 to 1730 inclusive, amounted to 



