THE CACAO-TREE. 
103 
in America its present range of cultivation extends from 
20° K. lat. to Guayaquil and Baliia, It has even lieen 
introduced into Africa and Asia, in return for tlie many 
useful trees that have been imported from the Old into 
the New World. The cacao-tree seldom rises above the 
height of twenty feet ; its leaves are large, oblong, and 
pointed. The flowers, which are of a pale red colour, grow 
on the stem £ind larger branches, and spring even from the 
roots. " Never," says Humboldt, " shall I forget the deep 
impression made npon me by the luxuriance of tropical vege- 
tation on first seeing a cacao-plantation. After a damp 
night, large blossoms of the theobroma issue from the root 
at a considenible distance from the trunk, emerging irom 
the deep black mould. A more striking example of the 
expansive powers of life can hardly be met with in organic 
nature." The fruits are large, oval, pointed pods, about 
five or Jiix inches long, and containing in five compart- 
ments from twenty to forty beans. 
The trees are raised from seed, genemlly in places 
screened from the wind. As they are incapable of bearing 
the scorching rays of the snn, particularly when young, 
bananas, maize, manioc, and other broad- leaved plants are 
sown between their rows, under whose shade they enjoy the 
damp and sultiy heat which is indispensable to their growth, 
for the Theobroma Cacao is essentially tropical, and requires 
a wanner climate than the coffee- tree or the sugar-cane. 
Two years after having been sown, tlio plant attains 
a height of three ieet, and sends foilh many branches, of 
which, however, but four or five are allowed to remain. The 
first fruits appear in the third year, bat the tree does not 
come into full bearing before it is six or seven years old, 
and from that time forward it continues to yield abundant 
crops of beans during more than twenty years. When an 
Indian can get a few thousand cacao-trees planted, he 
passes an idle, quiet, contented life : all be has to do is to 
weed under the trees two or three times in the year, and 
to gather and dry the seeds in the sun. 
