56 
PLANTS AND INSECTS 
almost every native home in the country parts of this island—Jamaica. 
It is a place prepared on the top of the ground by scraping off the top 
soil, which leaves a, flat, hard surface, and is neatly bordered by a frame 
of wood. This provides an excellent place upon which are spread 
coffee, chocolate, pimento, and other seeds or fruits that ai;e to be dried 
or ripened in the hot sun. When the cacao-beans have been thus thor¬ 
oughly dried, they are ready for export. By various patented processes 
abroad, the delicious chocolates and cocoas of commerce are produced. 
But the natives use the cacao in its original state as a beverage and 
prefer it to the imported products. It might be of interest to you to 
learn how this chocolate is prepared here for the table. First, you will 
notice that it is called cacao while it is still in its native state, but as a 
rule it is called chocolate as soon as the kernel is broken for use. The 
beverage is called chocolate here also'. The native takes the cured cacao 
and by subjecting it to heat over the fire parches it. This makes the 
outer skins easy to pinch off and leaves the cacao-bean clean and ready 
for use. It is then placed in a mortar and beaten into a fine powder. 
After it is cooled, they mix in sugar and spices and mold it into little 
cakes. These will keep any length of time. When needed, the cake- is 
grated and the chocolate boiled as a beverage. It is delicious even in 
this way when it has been properly prepared. —Nellie Olson. 
DIFFERENT SPECIES OF THE CACTUS 
HROUGHOUT the arid and semi-arid regions of our country, or 
those which comprise the great plains east of Hie Rocky Mountain 
system and the desert plains west of the Rockies, the cactus in all its 
many forms and shapes is considered the commonest of plants. 
On the prairie lands of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and 
the Dakotas, a small species grows in abundance, almost, hid away in the 
scrubby grass. Sometimes a single plant not more than one fourth of 
an inch in diameter can be found far from any other of its kind, and 
again clusters are found in which as many as twenty-five distinct plants 
or portions of plants are huddled together as; if one plant. A plant of 
this species, with its roots, is shown in one of the illustrations. 
There is something beautiful in this form of cactus. Its needle¬ 
like thorns grow in perfect star-like clusters, which remind us of the 
