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TRINIDAD ! THEN AND NOW. 



there is another book — " Joseph's History of Trini- 

 dad ' ' — not so widely read as it ought to be by the 

 people of Trinidad ; from which I will give some ex- 

 tracts, I will not attempt to recommend as gospel 

 truth all that he relates about its decline in former 

 years in Trinidad ; some of it appears somewhat ab- 

 surd but I find what appears most absurd is also re- 

 ferred to by Bryan Edwards. Joseph's account is a* 

 follows : — 



" Abbe Raynal, who in his historical romance 

 never fails to assign a cause for every event, says the 

 failure of the cocoa tree in Trinidad was occasioned 

 by the north winds. Tradition, however, assigns the 

 remarkable drought of that year (1725) as the cause. 



" In 1725, according to records and tradition, 

 the whole of the cocoa crop failed, and the greater 

 part of the cocoa trees died. The sudden blighting of 

 cocoa trees has often occurred in these islands and 

 has generally been attributed to the appearance of a 

 comet." 



* i It is remarkable that we frequently hear of the 

 entire blight of whole plantations of cocoa trees dur- 

 ing the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, 

 yet I believe these events have not been known to 

 occur for the last hundred years ; certainly not since 

 1756, when the inhabitants of Trinidad recommenced 

 the planting of cocoa on an extensive scale, no general 

 decay of cocoa trees has occurred." 



" A more probable explanation of the event was 

 given to me by an old gentleman, who stated it to be 

 the opinion of cocoa planters, in his youth, that the 



