Dec. 1, 1900.] THE TROPICAL AaRICULTURIST. 
379 
CACAO INDUSTRY IN GRENADA. 
Cacao growing is the staple industry in the interest- 
ing island of Grenada. Its prosperity for many years 
when other portions of the West Indies were in a 
depressed condition was entirely due to the successful 
cultivation of cacao trees. With the Ae^ of drawing 
attention to the desirability of making every effort to 
maintain the productiveness of cacao estates in 
Grenada, the following interesting notes, written by 
Mr. George Whitfield Smith in 1892, are reproduced : — 
" It is pleasant to notice one of the few instances in 
Grenada of a Cacao estate where, as the result of a 
careful system of manuring and draining, the pro- 
prietor gets from only twelve acres of Uaeao a 
return equal to what many others receive from three 
times that area. I refer to Good Hope Estate in this 
island, owned by the Rev. G. W. Branch. On the 
advice of His Excellency Sir Walter Hely-Hutchin- 
8on, I called one morning on the proprietor, and was 
most courteously shewn over the whole plantation. 
Both iSIr. Branch and his son, Mr. George Branch, 
most willingly afforded me all the information in 
their powei-. Wishing to be as clear as possible, I 
shall endeavour to adhere as closely as I can to Mr. 
Mr. Branch's replies to my questions concerning the 
working of his esLate. 
' ' I have been the owner of the property for over twenty 
years. Good Hope contains 22 acres— eight acres of 
this are in canes and pasture. I estimate that the 
buildings, yard, and entrance occupy another two 
acres, so that my extent of Cacao cultivation cannot 
be much over 12 acres. I purchased the place for 
about £100; at that time it bad a few neglected Cacao 
trees here and there. Many people ridiculed my 
attempt to grow Cacao there, as the land was consi- 
dered, by mcsi persons as almost valuless for that 
purpose. However, be that as it may, I could easily 
borrow £2,000 to day on its security if I wished to do 
so. My soil is rather poor for Cacao when compared 
with many other nlaces ; as you will see, in many 
places there is a bed of " tuff " not far from the sur- 
face, and you know, when the tap root of a Cacao 
tree touches this, there is an end of the whole 
matter. 
'How, then, do you account for the flourishing 
state of your trees, when, to judge from their size 
the tap roots must long since have come into con- 
tact with this layer of "tuff"?' 
' My Cacao trees have no need so drive their tap 
roots very deep, as I will shew you when we are 
going through the orchard The Cacao tree is natu- 
rally a deep rooter, but if it can meet with its 
nourishment near the surface it will undoubtedly 
develop its feeding spongioles wherever that nourish- 
ment is, and that is what happens in the case of my 
trees. 
'Please explain how you do this?' 
'Willingly. My cacao orchards are, as yon observe, 
on the slope of a hill, skirting the sides ; therefore, 
among the trees, I have roads out by simply dig- 
ging down the slope to a level. These roads are 
sufficiently wide to admit the passage of a light 
donkey cart, and as they wind along the hillside in 
a corkscrew fashion you will understand how they 
serve a two-fold capacity. First, they act as roada 
proper, and, secondly they act as drains, since a 
small canal always skirts the upper edge for the 
whole cf their length. Thus I have my Cacao field 
drained at regular intervals, and, in addition, my 
donkey cart can carry m.anure to any part of my 
estate.' 
'How do you apply your manure?' 
'Very simply: I just have the cart filled, and the 
driver upsets it at regular distances over the lower 
edge of these roads. I then go round as I can find 
time and bury this in. I likewise collect all leaves 
and bush from time to time, and bury these also. 
You will now see the effects of my system. Look 
down on the ground what you are walking on is 
not pure earth. Take up a handful of it. You will 
notice that it is a dense mass of fine rootlets or 
48 ■ ' . 
spongioles ! These have been called into bejag 
from the amount of nourishing material which they 
find here ready for them, and have no need to go 
deep in search of food. 
My system has converted the trees into surface 
feeders, and provided I keep them supplied with 
food I can fairly be said to have them well under 
control. Now, without manure the case is different ; 
the tree has to push its tap-root deeper and deeper 
every year, in search of food, often it strikes "tuS*' 
or '• clay " then death ensues. Even when this does 
not happen, it stands to reason that a tree 
with a single tap-root supplied with a few scanty and 
half-starved rootlets, is in a poor way when compared 
with my healthy and vigorous trees which have an 
abundance of young roots, all eagerly sucking up the 
nlant food around them. The good effect of this is 
easily seen when comparing the returns I get with 
those of neighbouring planters.' 
' What do you average as a return from your 12 
acres of Cacao cultivation ?' ' 
'About 87 bags per annum. This would represent 
a trifle over seven bags to the acre.' 
' The old trees which you found on the place 22 
years ago must be very old by this time : do they 
still bear vigorously ?' 
' Yes ' quite as well as the young ones, and they 
seem good for many years yet, thanks to my manure 
system.' 
' What do you consider to be a good yield per 
tree in pods per annum ?' 
It would be difficult for me to answer this and 
indeed I have never kept a record. My trees prac- 
tically never stop bearing, but my son counted 205 
ripe pods on one of the trees besides green fruit 
and flowers. As you can see most of them have 
each several dozen ripe fruit, green fruit, and flowers 
on them at the same time, so that my crop may be 
said to be continuous.' j 
*Do you purpose extending your cultivation?' 
'No ; the remaining portion of my land is too mno 
swept by prevailing winds to be of any value for Cacao ; 
besides, I find that it pays me better to keep a portion 
in cane cultivation or some other fodder, not from 
the profit to be derived from sugar, but because it en- 
ables me to feed my stock ; without this 1 could get 
no manure, and without manure I could get no Cacao. 
look upon my stock, therefore, as part of my work- 
ing capital. People here seem entirely to forget 
this. I very often hear them speaking of the hard 
work they are having to get their plantation " covered 
in " as they call it, but if they knew what I know, 
they would find it more to their interest to keep one- 
fifth of their plantation in pasture lands and fields of 
fodder plants, and to keep several heads of stock to 
fertilize the other four-fifths.' 
' What system do you adopt in storing your 
manure ?' 
' The old Barbados system, which I have found to 
work so well. I have all my animals kept in a pen, 
a portion of which is covered to afford protectior< 
in heavy weather. In this pen they stay nearly all 
the time that they are not in use. Their excrement 
is consequently collected in one place. I regularly 
cover this over with cut bush and litter, and at in- 
tervals I spread a layer of mould over it, and recover 
with litter. The result is, that at the end of a feW 
months I have a mass five feet thick of the richest 
fertilizing material that I know of, and one that for 
our generous soil needs little assistance from chemi- 
cal manures. In addition to this I use a large 
quantity of sheep manure, which I collect in a similar 
manner from my sheep farm at Point Saline.? 
' Do you ever transplant your trees ?' 
' Often : and here, again, the beneficial effects of 
my system become apparent. I take up large trees 
with pods on them. There is no danger, not being; 
deep feeders, they give little trouble. When a gap 
occurs through the death of a tree I fill it up M 
soon as possible.' 
' What do yon do in the way of pruning ? 
