30 



Cocoa, the beans are piled into small heaps on the drying tables, in the 

 early morning, and are ''danced" by the coolies, that is, five or six of the 

 men and women walk in a little ring on the top of this heap rubbing the 

 Cocoa together with their feet ; on some estates this is done every morning 

 till the Cocoa is dry. On one estate, this was left until the last morning, 

 when the skins of the Cocoa were slightly moistened with water, a little 

 red sand being added to the water after which the Cocoa was "danced" 

 spread out again on the floor and finally dried. We did not see in Tri- 

 nidad any satisfactory artificial dryers. We were informed that several 

 had been tried, but a satisfactory one had not yet been made. 



Picking and Sorting. — On the best estates in Trinidad, the Cocoa, 

 after drying, were sorted in a Pernollet machine. The broken nibs and 

 small beans appeared to find a ready sale locally. One planter had his 

 large beans picked over again by hand, which, he said co^t 2^d. per 

 bag. When we were at San Antonio some coolie women were picking 

 Cocoa over in the floor of a shed. 



Manuring. — There seemed to be practically no manuring on the 

 Cocoa plantations whatever ; pen manure that a Cocoa planter had, he 

 put on his estate, but this was necessarily small as few animals are kept. 

 We did not hear anywhere ofartificial manures being successfully applied. 

 All the husks after breaking the Cocoa, and the branches of the trees 

 were left upon the ground to rot, but apart from this nothing was put 

 upon the lands. Some of the planters said they had tried artificial 

 manures without success but all testified to the value of pen manure 

 when they could get it. 



Pruning. — Most of the planters cut away all the suckers, leaving the 

 stem some four or five high before they allowed it to branch, and 

 their idea in pruning, seemed to be, to keep the tree evenly balanced 

 upon this central stem. 



One planter who bad oiiginal ideas on pruning sometime-* allowed 

 suckers to grow on a tree. His main idea being to keep the tree evenly 

 balanced and to prevent any part of the stem being exposed to the wind 

 or rain. 



Drainage. — On the flat estates there is the expense of drainage. 

 These have to be made when forming the estate and to be kept clean 

 afterwards. 



Pests. - These are mainly squirrels and rats. They make holes in 

 the pods, and eat perhaps one or two beans only, then leaving them, but 

 the rain is admitted and the Cocoa is turned black and rotten. Ten 

 cents, a tail is paid for these animals. Some birds also make holes in 

 the pods to attract insects. The old trees on many d;imp estates are 

 covered with moss which has to be scraped off from time t > time. We 

 noticed this particularly on one estate, where the manager told us they 

 paid 28. a tree, using a corn cob for the purpose. 



Another pest is the Cocoa Beetle which is systematically hunted for 

 and destroyed whenever there are evidences of its appearance. 



The Croj) of an Estate depends on 



1st. There being an average amount of rain whilst the trees are 

 flowering and the pods are young, as a continued drought then withers 

 up the young pods 



2nd. A not too continuous rain on the other hand when the pods are 

 ripening as this makes them turn rotten. 



