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, they are prejudicially thick.
By attending to this, I am quite satisfied that a very material increase in the produce will be seen; indeed, I may say that on this depends the chief difference of 1¼ lb. and 11 lbs. per tree; for I consider it a very fair inference, that the average obtained here can be realised in any other place in this island, and to any extent, under the same circumstances of light and air, unless on very poor soil, of which we fortunately have but little.
At twenty-four feet apart there would be seventy-five trees per acre, or 250 per quarrée. This, at 11 lbs. per tree, gives 2,750 lbs. of dried cacao per quarrée, at 5 dollars per 100 lbs., gives 137 dollars 50 cents gross; deducting 80 dollars per quarrée expenses, leaves 57 dollars 60 cents net profit. Thus an estate of 120 acres, or 36 quarrées, would contain 9,000 trees, at 11 lbs. per tree will give 33,000 lbs. of cacao, at 5 dollars gives 4,350 dollars gross per annum; deducting 80 dollars per quarrée (a much more liberal sum than is at present laid out), leaves a net balance of 1,950 dollars, or 16 dollars 25 cents per acre.
Now this, it must be remembered, would be the produce from 9,000 trees, and from an estate containing only 36 quarrées of land (which cannot be considered a large one); what, then, might be expected from estates containing 40,000 trees?
I have been recently favoured with the following average return of cacao in this island, which I have no doubt will be considered a fair one. I insert it in full, and, from the very low return, it shows a lamentable deficiency in the cultivation of this most grateful tree:—
'The average number of cacoa trees in a quarrée of land is 868.
'1st. The estates throughout the island are generally planted at a distance of 12 feet by 12, and 13½ feet by 13½. Those planted at 12 by 12 contain 969 trees in the quarrée, and those at 13½ by 13½ contain 767 trees, the area of the quarrée being taken at 139,697 superficial feet. There may be in the island about 60 quarrées in all, planted at 15 by 15 feet.
'2nd. The actual annual value of a quarrée of land planted in cacoa is ten fanegas, or 1¼ lb. to a tree.
'It is to be observed that this is the general return from each tree as estates are now cultivated, but if planters had the means of keeping their estates in high cultivation, each cacoa tree would produce 2 lbs. on an average.