and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 875 



yellow alono. The point is an interesting one, 

 both botanically and etyniolog'callv. The 

 Spanish term criollo, of which crioullo and 

 Creole are the Portuguese an d French-English 

 variants, in the strict sense denotes an indivi- 

 dual of pure white race — not mixed — born and 

 bred in a tropical country, as distinguished 

 on the one hand from the coloured man, 

 and on the other from the non-domiciled 

 foreigner —the forastero — of the same race. 

 By extension to the vegetable kingdom, with 

 application, in the special case in hand, to the 

 cacao plant, criollo and forastero (and their cog- 

 nate forms in Portuguese) serve to designate 

 fully acclimatised and newly introduced vari- 

 eties respectively. But as acclimatisation, both 

 in the animal and the vegetable kingdom, brings 

 with it an assimilation to the indigenous type 

 or at least to that already modified and ad- 

 apted to its environment, the term forastero in 

 the course of a generation or two ceases to 

 indicate more than a historical distinction. And 

 this is specially true of cacao cultivation in S. 

 Thome. The history of its early introduction is 

 a matter of dispute. It is quite certain that 

 in 1822 a stock of cacao imported from Bahia, 

 Brazil being then a Portuguese colony, was 

 successfully raised on the Agua-Ize estates — 

 to this day the most important property in the 

 islands. Also that the crioullo de S. Thome" is 

 the type universal on the Gold ('oast, in the 

 French Congo and the German colony of Kame- 

 rnn. It is equally certain that a consignment 

 of forastero (in which term must be included 

 the foreign criollo varieties of Trinidad and 

 "V enezuela) was received in this island in 1882 — 

 sixty years later than the first supply. Its 

 succeeded perfectly, but is still undergoing the 

 modification imposed by the law of adaptation 

 to environment. Chevalier, however, while ad- 

 mitting all this, doubts the 1822 importation 

 having been the source of the staple crioullo 

 of the islands. He sets it much further back, 

 and inclines to the belief that the plant was 

 imported from the Spanish main in the 16th or 

 17th century, acclimatised in Fernaudo P6, and 

 distributed thence to St. Thome and Principe 

 on the one hand, and to the African coast 

 settlements around the Gulf of Guinea on the 

 other. As to the so-called crioullo de S. Thome, 

 he not only maintains that it exists in the purple- 

 capsuled variety as well as the yellow, but that 

 the former is the more resistent, the latter only 

 forming l-5th of tha total visible on the trees 

 planted at the higher levels (about 700 metres 

 above sea- level.) The planters' reply to this 

 is that M, Chevalier has misinterpreted the 

 phenomenon he describes. What he has seen 

 is not a purple crioullo, but a purple forastero 

 (which at those elevations is more resistent) 

 in process of modification — at a stage when the 

 shape of the capsule, but not yet its colour, 

 has assimilated itself to that of the crioullo. 

 Had ho pursued this line of investigation at 

 the lower elevations, he could hardly have 

 failed to note the further process of adapt- 

 ation to environment, as presented by trees 

 bearing on the same stem fruits of all shades 

 intermediate between purple and yellow, the 

 tendency being to the extinction, more rapidly 

 at lower (and more suitable) elevations, less so at 



higher, of the purple variety ; this being the 

 linal stage in the general assimilation of the 

 more recent importations to the established type. 



Peculiar to S. Thome and Principe, distinct 

 both from the original crioullo and the more 

 recent foiasteros, is a cacao of unknown origin, 

 which Chevalier, failing to discover any link 

 between them and it, has raised to the rank of a 

 species under the title 



THEOBROMA SPHAEROCARPA. 



This tree is very prolific, bearing a fruit of the 

 shape colour and size of a Malta orange, but 

 ribbed like any other. Popular name, cacao 

 laranja. It does not seem to have been described 

 elsewhere. The planters remember it as abundant 

 for moro than a quarter of a century, but do not 

 agree as to its value, some condemning it as 

 likely to lower the standard of the island cacao, 

 its bean being small and bitter. Senhor de 

 Mendonca, proprietor of Boa Entrada, one of 

 the larger estates in St. Thome\ tells me that all 

 the trees he has ol this species have sprung from 

 the seeds of a single capsule, brought from 

 Principe eighteen years ago ; and the better he 

 treated the seedlings the worse they repaid him, 

 so that practically only those planted out in 

 the jungle from the first and left entirely to 

 nature gave any satisfactory results. Chevalier 

 on the other hand notes with approval the 

 opinion of those planters who hold that in good 

 soil and with due care the crop can be vastly 

 improved. But after an exhaustive examination 

 of the bean, he concludes that though with 

 pulp attached it accounts for from 23 per cent to 

 27 per cent of the total weight of the capsule, 

 its abundance does not make up for its smallness 

 in size. He accordingly classifies it as a second 

 grade cacao. 



Whatever the variety selected for reproduc- 

 tion, the seeds are chosen with the utmost care, 

 it being usual to set apart the most promising 

 pods and to limit the beans for sowing to fifteen 

 or twenty taken from the centre of the pod 

 These are at once sown in rich soil previously 

 prepared, generally in baskets in a nursery, 

 but sometimes directly in the pits in situ. 

 In either case the pits in the plantation have 

 been dug months beforehand to a depth length 

 and breadth of a cubic metre at least, all pos- 

 sible stones being removed, and the hole half 

 filled with dead leaves and rotted capsules, 

 to be covered later on with earth up to the 

 level of the ground. If the sowing is direct, 

 as many as ten seeds may be placed in the 

 same pit, or three seedlings if the planting out 

 is done from the nursery. The two or three 

 best seedlings of the lot are, as a rule, left 

 to spring up together, forming clumps the in- 

 dividual trees of which are noted by Chevalier 

 to be fully as vigorous as if planted out singly 

 The season of year selected for sowing is 

 generally the beginning of the rains— October 

 or November— but it has been proposed to 

 gain a year in the growth by putting out the 

 seedlings in dry weather, when the labourers 

 are not so liable to be hustled by the heavy 

 showers, and the European supervisors to mala- 

 rious influences, most prevalent at the com- 

 mencement of the wet weather. 



