206 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



as Amelonado and Calabacillo; from these we can select stocks to suit 

 any practical cacao soil and situation. We have a large area, bigger than 

 that of some of the smaller cacao-growing islands, where anything but a 

 pure Criollo tree can hardly be found. From these we can take seeds, 

 raise seedlings, and provide buds in large quantities. Nowhere in the 

 world can cacao be planted and brought into bearing so cheaply as in 

 Jamaica ; does not the banana far more than pay all expenses, and settle 

 at the same time what appears to be a vexed question in other islands, of 

 the proper kind of shade plant to use for the young cacao ? It struck me 

 as very odd when a paper on the future of cacao planting could be written 

 and read without mentioning the banana. It did seem to me to illustrate 

 how much more difficult and expensive it must be to establish a cacao 

 plantation outside of Jamaica. 



With regard to the question of manures, I must confess that, with the 

 exception of the use of natural manures and perhaps lime and basic slag, 

 we have not done very much in Jamaica, and what has been done has not 

 proved encouraging. This probably has given rise to the impression that 

 the planters in Jamaica are not progressive, but I am quite sure that if 

 any maker of fertilizers can prove to the Jamaica cacao planter that by 

 spending 10s. he can make 15s. or even 12s. 0>d., he will find a liberal and 

 staunch patron in him. 



Judging from the lantern slides exhibited, the cultivation of the land 

 in Jamaica is very different from that in Trinidad, or wherever the pictures 

 were taken. 



Forking and draining in Jamaica are, on all the good plantations, 

 carried on continuously, except in a very few where drainage is unnecessary. 

 In the paper we have just listened to, no mention is made of drainage. 

 Many of the best Jamaica estates would be absolutely useless without their 

 highly efficient schemes of drainage, which are by no means confined to 

 level or low-lying lands, it having been found by actual experience that 

 the contour of the land makes little difference so long as there is a clay 

 subsoil. 



The question of shading always appears to me to be one which can 

 only be decided on the spot under consideration. I have never been able 

 to understand how people in Grenada object to shade, while Trinidadians 

 pin their entire faith on it. Of course, I am speaking from hearsay, as I 

 know neither of the places mentioned. 



That the question of permanent shading is a difficult one everybody 

 should be prepared to admit. As I before intimated, the question of 

 shading for the young plants has been settled for us in Jamaica by the 

 banana, and this, too, has proved to be quite sufficient shade for old trees 

 which are not exposed to hot, dry winds, and it, moreover, has the great 

 advantage of being able to pay for the cultivation of the land on which 

 grow both itself and the cacao. On good lands, fairly well sheltered even 

 without the banana, the question of shade is an easy one, but where the 

 land is not all it should be, where the trees will have to be exposed to 

 hot, dry winds, then shading becomes a problem, though not perhaps in 

 the first few years, when almost any tree which has been selected for shade 

 • s fairly satisfactory. At this time the cacao trees are young, the soil 

 good., and the demands made on it by the shade tree not heavy, the shade 



