Z88 
CACAO PLANTATION 8. 
The town of Canaco has been repeatedly sacked in former 
times by the Caribs. Its population has augmented rapidly 
since the provincial authorities, in spite of prohibitory 
orders from the court of Madrid, have often favoured the 
trade with foreign colonies. The population amounted, in 
1800, to more than 6000 souls. The inhabitants are active 
in the cultivation of cotton, which is of a very fine quality. 
The capsules of the cotton-tree, when separated from the 
woolly substance, are carefully burnt; as those husks if thrown 
into the river, and exposed to putrefaction, yield noxious 
exhalations. The culture of the cacao-tree has of late con- 
siderably diminished. This valuable tree bears only after 
eight or ten years. Its fruit keeps very badly in the ware- 
houses, and becomes mouldy at the expiration of a year, 
notwithstanding all the precautions employed for drying it. 
It is only in. the interior of the province, to the east of 
the Sierra de Meapire, that new plantations of the cacao- 
tree are seen. They become there the more productive, as 
the lands, newly cleared and surrounded by forests, are in 
contact with an atmosphere damp, stagnant, and loaded 
with mephitic exhalations. We there see fathers of families, 
attached to the old habits of the colonists, slowly amass a 
little fortune for themselves and their children. Thirty 
thousand cacao-trees will secure competence to a family 
for a generation and a half. If the culture of cotton and 
coffee have led to the diminution of cacao in the province of 
Caracas and in the small valley of Cariaco, it must be 
admitted that this last branch of colonial industry has in 
general increased in the interior of the provinces of New 
Barcelona and Cumana. The causes of the progressive 
movement of the cacao-tree from west to east may be easily 
conceived. The province of Caracas has been from a 
remote period cultivated: and, in the torrid zone, in pro- 
portion as a country has been cleared, it becomes drier 
and more exposed to the winds. These physical changes 
have been adverse to the propagation of cacao-trees, the 
plantations of which, diminishing in the province of Ca- 
racas, have accumulated eastward on a newly-cleared and 
virgin soil. The cacao of Cumana is infinitely superior to 
that of Guayaquil. The best is produced in the valley of 
San Bonifacio; as the best cacao of New Barcelona, Cara- 
