ich the area is utilised depends on the
enterprise of man. The original home of cacao was the rich tropical
region, far-famed in Elizabethan days, that lies between the Amazon and
the Orinoco, and but for the enterprise of man it is doubtful if it
would have ever spread from this region. Monkeys often carry the beans
many miles--man, the master-monkey, has carried them round the world.
First the Indians spread cacao over the tropical belt of the American
continent and cultivated it as far North as Mexico. Then came the
Spanish explorers of the New World, who carried it from the mainland to
the adjacent West Indian islands. Cacao was planted by them in Trinidad
as early as 1525. Since that date it has been successfully introduced
into many a tropical island. It was an important day in the history of
Ceylon when Sir R. Horton, in 1834, had cacao plants brought to that
island from Trinidad. The carefully packed plants survived the ordeal of
a voyage of ten thousand miles. The most recent introduction is,
however, the most striking. About 1880 a native of the Gold Coast
obtained some beans, probably from Fernando Po. In 1891, the first bag
of cacao was exported; it weighed 80 pounds. In 1915, 24 years later,
the export from the Gold Coast was 120 million pounds.

[Illustration: CACAO TREE, WITH PODS AND LEAVES]

_The Cacao Tree._

Tropical vegetation appears so bizarre to the visitor from temperate
climes that in such surroundings the cacao tree seems almost
commonplace. It is in appearance as moderate and unpretentious as an
apple tree, though somewhat taller, being, when full grown, about
twenty feet high. It begins to bear in its fourth or fifth year. Smooth
in its early youth, as it gets older it becomes covered with little
bosses (cushions) from which many flowers spring. I saw one fellow, very
tall and gnarled, and with many pods on it; turning to the planter I
enquired "How old is that tree?" He replied, almost reverentially: "It's
a good deal older than I am; must be at least fifty years old." "It's
one of the tallest cacao trees I've seen. I wonder--." The planter
perceived my thought, and said: "I'll have it measured for you." It was
forty feet high. That was a tall one; usually they are not more than
half that height. The bark is reddish-grey, and may be partly hidden by
brown, grey and green patches of lichen. The bark is both beautiful and
quaint, but in the main the tree owes its beauty to its luxuriance