Jan. I, 1898.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
457 
with the .special object of joining the School. He 
has gone through the full course of study ex- 
tending over two years with credit; the only pity 
being that he could not have been shown the 
cultivation of Ceylon products as carried on, on 
our estates, the Government making no provision 
for taking the Agricultural students on tour. • 
CACAO DISEASE AND SHADE. 
Dec. 3, 
PLANTING NOTES FROM MATALE WEST. 
Pluckers will be vei'y busy again. This season 
has been a good one for cardamoms, and with the 
high price we are having, owners of cardamom 
fields will have a happy time of it. I wish the 
same could be said for those having tea, cinna- 
mon and coconuts. 
Mr. AVillis and the expert’s opinion on the 
cacao disease are interesting reading, but the 
opinion that heavy shade might be one of the 
causes, does not seem to hold good, when one 
sees the growth of cacao on Marakona, where 
the shade is more dense, than any propei ty I 
know of. Passing by train through about two 
or three miles of this property, one does not 
see for miles, a tree diseased, while higher up and 
lower down, a good many trees are diseased. A 
good number of planters passing this property 
were of opinon that the soil on the estate was 
too poor, as cacao required a rich deep soil, but 
luckily there was the superintendent, Mr. Hollo- 
way, who knew what he was about, and allowed 
weeds to grow, thus saving wash. Latterly when 
the estate had a fair amount of shade, the weeds 
were cut down, and mixed with lime and buried, 
thus giving the trees a good manuring at little 
cost, and making the soil richer than when 
first planted. 
If this estate was kept clean from the com- 
mencement of planting, the soil exposed till the 
shade came on would have hardened, and with 
the rains, there would have been a great deal 
of wash. 
CHOCOLATE CULTURE IN NICARA- 
GUA AND MEXICO. 
BY ROWLAND W, CARTER. 
The visitor to Nicaragua, will not be long in the 
country before an opportunity to ‘ sample’ Tiste will 
resent itself. It is a preparation of powdered cacao 
eans, sugar, maize-flour, and water, and may be 
called the national beverage. Europeans, accusto- 
med to the chocolate of the French and Italian cafes, 
do not at first care for it, but they soon recognise its 
virtues. To the poor peon it is often both food ami 
drink, and with a jicara gourd more or less full of it on 
his back, he will toil contentedly for six or eight 
hours, asking no other nourishment. 
Long before the conquest, a decoction of which the 
cacao bean formed the principal ingredient was held 
in the highest favour in Mexico and Central America. 
The Aztecs called this drink cJiocolatl, and every tribe 
they subjugated had to bring a certain number of bags 
of cacao as tribute to the Emperor. The chocolate 
of those savage conquerors was flavoured with vanilla, 
even as ours is today, but other spices, some of which 
have not been identified, were used to improve this 
‘ food for a god.’ 
EAETHQUAKES GALORE. 
I am not likely to forget the catastrophe which 
led to my first introduction to Theohroma Cacao 
as cultivated on a large scale in Nicaragua, for it 
was nothing lass than an earthquake. Seismic dis- 
turbances are common in Centi al America : and the 
volcanoes on the flag of Nicaragua are not without 
meaning. It is a land of volcanoes, and the sonorous 
names which the Indians bestowed still cling to 
many of them, telling, as plainly as sounds can, of 
the awe and dread the ancient people held them in 
when they were not slumbering, as now, but active 
and malevolent. Omotepe — Mombacho — Momotombo 
— the names suggest a rumbling and roaring, fire, and a 
lava flood that nothing could withstand. 
Granada, where I was dwelling in September 
1890, stands at the foot of Mombacho. At one 
time it was the capital, but the Jealousy of Leon 
has made Managua the seat of government. 
Granada, indeed, has never recovered from the Fili- 
buster War, when General Henningsen almost razed 
it to the ground. Before the Revolution, and since, 
it was a city of palaces. Now it is more or less 
ruinous. 
Ou Sunday, the second day of that eventful Septem- 
ber, I was sitting in the patio, or court-yard, of the 
house in which I resided, when I suddenly became aware 
of a muffled roar, not unlike distant thunder, but 
apparently proceeding from the ground, which quivered 
under my chair. My companions instantly sprang to 
their feet. 
‘ Tremblor — Trembler I ’ they shouted, and ran 
through the w'ide portiere in to the street. I followed. 
They, and hundreds more, men, women, and children, 
were racing towards the plaza, or great square. 
Hysterical shrieks, cries, and shouts filled the air, 
which was so thick with dust that I could see no 
better than in a London fog. The plaza was no great 
distance, but the vibrating ground made my steps so 
uncertain that it seemed many minutes before I joined 
the terrified throng already gathered in that open, 
and therefore comparatively safe place of refuge. 
Some, struck down by falling tiles and bricks, never 
reached it, but the casualties were few. 
The roar and the quivering died away, and 
after a while the people, thinking the danger 
at an end, began to return to their homes. But 
j had scarcely reached the patio that I had left so 
hurriedly when another shock, sharp and sudden, 
sent us all flying to the plaza again. This was fol- 
lowed at a brief interval by a third and a fourth, 
each more violent than the preceding one.. Stone 
houses rooked to and fro like poplars in a hurricane ; 
adobe walls cracked and fell; roofs seemed to be 
stripped off entire ; but the huts of the poor, built 
of timber, with walls of plastered canes, generally 
escaped. The crash of falling masonry, clanging of 
bells in the church towers, howling of dogs, cries of 
children and lamentations of their parents, made an 
uproar almost indescribable. 
A few priests of Spanish blood ran about endeav- 
ouring to calm the people ; but many cried that it was 
the Day of Judgment, while others declared that it 
was heaven’s punishment on the inhabitants for visit- 
ing the theatre, where an operatic company bad been 
playing La Mascota. 
The shocks continued at intervals for twenty- 
eight days — four weeks of panic, desolation, and dis- 
t’ e s. Those who had haciendas in the country fled 
Jrlther, leaving their city houses at the mercy of 
tdieves, whom even earthquakes could not restrain 
from pillage. The government ran free trains to places 
of safety, so that long before the shocks came to an 
end Granada was comparatively deserted. Those 
who remained ate and slept in the streets. I, almost 
a stranger in a strange land, did not at first know 
where to go until I bethought myself that I had an 
invitation from the manageress to visit the ‘ Valle 
Menier’ cacao estate, situated near Nandaime, about 
half-way between Granada and Rivas. Thither I went, 
leaving my lares and penates in the care of the earth- 
quakes, with small hope of seeing them again. 
A LARGE CACAO PLANTATION. 
The ‘ Valle Menier’ plantation is by far the largest 
and best-managed in Nicaragua, and, as its name 
will indicate, it is the source of the famous 
‘ Chocolate Menier,’ so largely consumed in France 
and England. The owners, Messrs. Menier Bro- 
thers, of Paris, culivate the cacao in a thoroughly 
