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The heart-leaved bixa, or anotta. Log-wood. Although now cultivated in many other tropical countries, the cacao tree is one of the New World's rich gifts, first made known to our ancestors by the venturesome Spaniards, who probably became acquainted with its cultivation early in the sixteenth century, and spread the knowledge derived from the Mexicans and the inhabitants of Central America to their other colonies.
Above all, can nothing be done to increase the yield of the cacao-farms, and the quality of Trinidad cacao? For this latter industry, at least, I have hope. My friend if he will allow me to call him so Mr. John Law has shown what extraordinary returns may be obtained from improved cacao-growing; at least, so far to his own satisfaction that he is himself trying the experiment.
The cacao, the source from whence our chocolate comes, was originally found in Mexico, where its seeds once formed the money, or circulating medium, of the aboriginal tribes. It grows here in abundance and to great perfection. Cordova has between six and eight thousand inhabitants. It is nearly three thousand feet above sea level, and is rarely troubled with yellow fever; but ague is common.
The whites, Portuguese and Brazilians, are a relatively more numerous class here than in other settlements, and make great pretensions to civilisation; they are the merchants and shopkeepers of the place; owners of slaves, cattle estates, and cacao plantations.
This practice is better suited to steep hillside plantations than to those in open valleys or on the plains. The cacao leaves, at first a tender yellowish-brown, ultimately turn to a bright green, and attain a considerable size, often fourteen to eighteen inches in length, sometimes even larger.
With the gradual extinction of the natives, not only the gold output ceased, but the cultivation of ginger, cotton, cacao, indigo, etc., in which articles a small trade had sprung up, was abandoned. The Carib incursions and hurricanes did the rest, and the island soon became a vast jungle which everybody who could abandoned.
The price of Crown lands was reduced, in 1869, to 1 pounds per acre; and the Montserrat system extended, as far as possible, to other wards; a movement which the results fully justified. In 1867 there were in Montserrat 400 squatters, holding lands of from 3 to 120 acres, planted with cacao, coffee, or provisions. Some of the cacao plantations were valued at 1000 pounds.
The principal cacao region is the Cibao and the upper Seibo plain, and the largest plantation, belonging to the well-known Swiss chocolate manufacturer, Suchard, is situated near Sabana la Mar, on the south side of Samana Bay. The cacao here produced is not of the finest grade, such as that grown in Ecuador, but goes to make the cheaper grades of chocolate.
Ithulpo had supplied my father and me with cacao, by chewing a piece of which occasionally, we avoided any feeling of hunger; and as we also wetted our lips, when they became parched, with the water from our flasks, we did not suffer much from thirst. Still the sensation of oppression and fatigue was very painful.
John Ogilby, writing in 1671 of the produce of America, says: "But much more beneficial is the cacao, with which Fruit New Spain drives a great Trade; nay, serves for Coin'd Money. When they deliver a Parcel of Cacao, they tell them by five, thirty, and a hundred. Their Charity to the Poor never exceeds above one Cacao-nut.
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