CACAO BEANS EXPORTED.

Country.Metric Tons.[2]Percentage of
World's production.
Brazil41,86515.4
Ecuador38,0014.0
(Guayaquil alone 34,973 tons)
Venezuela13,0005.0
Surinam2,4680.9
British Guiana200.01
South American Total95,353 tons35.31 per cent.

RAKING CACAO BEANS ON THE DRIERS.

GATHERING CACAO PODS IN ECUADOR.

(La Clementina Plantation, Ecuador.)

ECUADOR.

Arriba and Machala Cacaos.—In Ecuador, for many years the chief producing area of the world, dwell the cacao kings, men who possess very large and wild cacao forests, each containing several million cacao trees. The method of culture is primitive, and no artificial manures are used, yet for several generations the trees have given good crops and the soil remains as fertile as ever. The two principal cacaos are known as Arriba and Machala, or classed together as Guayaquil after the city of that name. Guayaquil, the commercial metropolis of the Republic of Ecuador, is an ancient and picturesque city built almost astride the Equator. Despite the unscientific cultural methods, and the imperfect fermentation, which results in the cacao containing a high percentage of unfermented beans and not infrequently mouldy beans also, this cacao is much appreciated in Europe and America, for the beans are large and possess a fine strong flavour and characteristic scented aroma. The amount of Guayaquil cacao exported in 1919 was 33,209 tons.

SORTING CACAO FOR SHIPMENT, GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR.

An interesting experiment was made in 1912, when a protective association known as the Asociacion de Agricultores del Ecuador was legalised. This collects half a golden dollar on every hundred pounds of cacao, and by purchasing and storing cacao on its own account whenever prices fall below a reasonable minimum, attempts in the planter's interest to regulate the selling price of cacao. Unfortunately, as cacao tends to go mouldy when stored in a damp tropical climate, the Asociacion is not an unmixed blessing to the manufacturer and consumer.

BRAZIL.

Parâ and Bahia Cacaos.—Brazil has made marked progress in recent years, and has now overtaken Ecuador in quantity of produce; the cacao, however, is quite different from, and not as fine as, that from Guayaquil. The principal cacao comes from the State of Bahia, where the climate is ideal for its cultivation. Indeed so perfect are the natural conditions that formerly no care was taken in cacao production, and much of that gathered was wild and uncured. During the last decade there has been an improvement, and this would, doubtless, be more noteworthy if the means of transport were better, for at present the roads are bad and the railways inadequate; hence most of the cacao is brought down to the city of Bahia in canoes. Nevertheless, Bahia cacao is better fermented than the peculiar cacao of Pará, another important cacao from Brazil, which is appreciated by manufacturers on account of its mild flavour. Bahia exported in 1919 about 51,000 tons of cacao.

VENEZUELA.

Caracas, Carupano and Maracaibo Cacaos.—Venezuela has been called "the classic home of cacao," and had not the chief occupation of its inhabitants been revolution, it would have retained till now the important position it held a hundred years ago. It is in this enchanted country (it was at La Guayra in Caracas, as readers of Westward Ho! will remember, that Amyas found his long-sought Rose) that the finest cacao in the world is produced: the criollo, the bean with the golden-brown break. The tree which produces this is as delicate as the cacao is fine, and there is some danger that this superb cacao may die out—a tragedy which every connoisseur would wish to avert.

The Gordian estimates that Venezuela sent out from her three principal ports in 1919 some 16,226 tons of cacao.

THE WEST INDIES.

MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES.
Only cacao-producing areas are marked.

In the map of South America the principal West Indian islands producing cacao are marked. Their production in 1918 was as follows: