145 



Edible Products. 



FRUIT CHARACTERS. 



Most of the varieties of cacao grown in Ceylon are roughly divisible into the 

 Old Red or Caracas, the Forastero or Hybrid and the Amelonado types. The 

 classification given by Morris is simple, and that by Hart more detailed, though the 

 latter does not, in my opinion, give a sufficiently minute sub-division to make it of 

 every-day use on cacao estates outside Trinidad. The ease with which new strains of 

 cacao arise has resulted in confusion, and it is a very difficult task to formulate a key 

 to include the distinctive characteristics of the varieties existing in any one country 

 where cacao has been cultivated for twenty or thirty years. As far as fruit charac- 

 ters alone are concerned it would be no difficult matter to collect specimens which in 

 point of size, shape, and colour form a more or less continuous series connecting the 

 Nicaragua, Criollo, and Forastero types with one another ; even the same tree in a 

 single year or in successive years may produce fruits differing widely in external 

 characteristics, and when one considers the characters of the rest of the vegeta tive 

 system and those of the seeds, the mixed nature ol the varieties now cultivated 

 is manifest. 



The classification of the cacao varieties into three groups by Hart is, accord- 

 ing to that gentleman, necessary, in order to distinguish between the Calabacillo 

 and Forastero types. It is equally necessary to adopt a similar classification for the 

 varieties in Ceylon and to perhaps omit the Calabacillo group (which is very rarely 

 if ever, met with in this island) and give the Amelonado variety a separate class, as it 

 is on all estates so markedly different in its shape, green-yellow colour and flat pur- 

 ple seeds from any other Forastero type. 



In order to enable one to select the various types it will be necessary to deal 

 very fully with the characters of the fruit wall and seeds. 



FRUIT WALL. 



Thickness. — The thinnest walls are found in the Nicaraguan and Caracas types 

 and the thickest in the Forastero forms. The following figures show the thickness, 

 lengths, circumferences and weights of several fruit walls of cacao pods grown at 

 Peradeniya :— 



Variety. 



Thickness 

 of 

 wall. 



Length of 

 wall. 



Circumference 

 in middle of 

 fruit. 



Average 

 weight of 



100 fresh 

 fruit walls. 



Nicaragua ... ... 12 mm. 19-1 cm. 28-0cm. 



Caracas ... ... 13 „ 17-2 ,, 23-7 „ 



Forastero-Cundeamor .. 15 ,, 20 (3 ,, 26-5 ,, 



Amelonado ... ... 15 ,, 18-5 ,, 26-7 „ 



lb. 



oz. 



84 14 

 74 12 



It is obvious from these records that the most wasteful variety of cacao, as far 

 as the thickness and weight of fruit wall are concerned, is the Forastero-Cundeamor 

 and the most economical the Caracas or Nicaraguan type. 



Colour.— The outer surface of the fruit wall is, in unripe specimens, red or 

 green, these changing during ripening to reddish-yellow or yellow respectively. In 

 the Forastero group the fruits show all proportions of red and green inter-mingled 

 with one another and even the Criollo fruits may be yellow or red. In Ceylon, the 

 Amelonado variety is distinct in always having a green wall changing to pale 

 yellow on ripening. Usually all the fruits on the same tree have a similar colour or 

 distribution of colours. 



