ources of our fertile island, particularly as far as any
improvement can be suggested capable of averting, at least, a part
of the misery and ruin that is hovering over us, and which is too
eagerly borne on the lips of all classes of the community, instead
of using our efforts to do what we can to meet the difficulty; but
few seem to inquire whether we make the most of our present means or
not, whilst every one rather joins in the cry that sugar fetches
little or nothing, and it is no uncommon thing to hear the complaint
transferred from sugar to cacao.

It is but too true that the markets are at present lamentably
against the most important branch of our industry, under the present
manner of sugar cultivation and manufacture in this island. But it
can hardly be admitted that the same is the case in that of
cacao--also a very important branch of our agriculture.

My attention has been lately directed to the average produce per
tree, which will, I hope, throw some light on its cultivation. From
fifteen cacao trees, which are all there are at St. Ann's, I have
this year gathered 115 lbs. of cacoa (dried), and at present there
is at least 50 lbs. more ripe on the same trees. This gives 165 lbs.
of cacao from fifteen trees, or 11 lbs. per tree. These cannot be
considered fine trees; on the contrary, they are what would be
considered ordinary ones; therefore the average in this case is
fair, and differs materially from selecting the produce of fifteen
trees from a large plantation, and giving the average return of what
might be obtained from cacao cultivation. Last year these trees did
not average more than 2 lbs. per tree, and I attribute the increase
of crop to the thinning out of both the cacao and shade trees.

In a former letter to the cacao-planters of Trinidad, I recommended
twenty-four to thirty feet from tree to tree as the proper distance;
but so as to meet the feelings of those who, unfortunately for
themselves, consider every cacao tree cut down a sacrifice, I
propose that the trees be thinned out to twenty-four feet, and that,
at intervals of twenty rows at most, avenues of fifty feet in both
directions should be left. After this, it will be better seen what
may be necessary to be done to each individual tree; neither should
the shade trees be forgotten; as a general rule,