Cacao Culture in the Philippines

by William Scrugham Lyon

The next day they are returned to the box, subjected to a strong sun heat and again returned to the heap. This operation is repeated for several days, until the beans, by their bright chocolate color and suppleness, indicate that they are cured. If, during the period of fermentation, rain is threatened or occurs, the beans are shoveled, still hot, into bags and retained there until they can once more be exposed to the sun. Before the final bagging they are carefully hand rubbed in order to remove the adherent gums and fibrous matters that did not pass off in the primary fermentation.

In Ceylon, immediately after the beans have been fermented they are washed, and the universally high prices obtained by the Ceylon planters make it desirable to reproduce here a brief résumé of their method. The fermentation is carried on under sheds, and the beans are heaped up in beds of 60 cm. to 1 meter in thickness upon a platform of parallel joists arranged to permit of the escape of the juices. This platform is elevated from the ground and the whole heap is covered with sacks or matting. The fermentation takes from five to seven days, according to the heat of the atmosphere and the size of the heap, and whenever the temperature rises above 40° the mass is carefully turned over with wooden shovels.

Immediately after the fermentation is completed the Ceylon planter passes the mass through repeated washings, and nothing remains but to dry the seed. This in Ceylon is very extensively done, in dryers of different kinds, some patterned after the American fruit dryer, some in slowly rotating cylinders through the axis of which a powerful blast of hot air is driven.

The process of washing unquestionably diminishes somewhat the weight of the cured bean; for that reason the practice is not generally followed in other countries, but in the case of the Ceylon product it is one of the contributing factors to the high prices obtained.

Enemies and Diseases.

Monkeys, rats, and parrots are here and in all tropical countries the subject of much complaint, and if the plantation is remote from towns or in the forest, their depredations can only be held in check by the constant presence of well-armed hunter or watchman. Of the more serious enemies with which we have to deal, pernicious insects and in particular those that attack the wood of the tree, everything has yet to be learned.

Mr. Charles N. Banks, an accomplished entomologist, now stationed at Maao, Occidental Negros, is making a close study of the life history of the insect enemies of cacao, and through his researches it is hoped that much light will be thrown upon the whole subject and that ways will be devised to overcome and prevent the depredations of these insect pests. The most formidable insect that has so far been encountered is a beetle, which pierces and deposits its eggs within the bark. When the worm hatches, it enters the wood and traverses it longitudinally until it is ready to assume the mature or beetle state, when it comes to the surface and makes its escape. These worms will frequently riddle an entire branch and even enter the trunk. The apertures that the beetle makes for the laying of its eggs are so small—more minute than the head of a pin—that discovery and probing for the worm with a fine wire is not as fruitful of results as has been claimed.

Of one thing, however, we are positively assured, i. e., that the epoch of ripening of the cacao fruit is the time when its powerful fragrance serves to attract the greatest number of these beetles and many other noxious insects to the grove. This, too, is the time when the most constant and abundant supply of labor is on the plantation and when vast numbers of these insects can be caught and destroyed. The building of small fires at night in the groves, as commonly practiced here and in many tropical countries, is attended with some benefits. Lately, in India, this remedy has been subject to an improvement that gives promise of results which will in time minimize the ravages of insect pests. It is in placing powerful acetylene lights over broad, shallow vats of water overlaid with mineral oil or petroleum. Some of these lamps now made under recent patents yield a light of dazzling brilliancy, and if well distributed would doubtless lure millions of insects to their death. The cheap cost of the fuel also makes the remedy available for trial by every planter.

There is a small hemipterous insect which stings the fruit when about two-thirds grown, and deposits its eggs within. For this class of insects M. A. Tonduz, who has issued publications on the diseases of cacao in Venezuela, recommends washing the fruit with salt water, and against the attacks of beetles in general by painting the tree stem and branches with Bordeaux mixture, or with the vassiliére insecticide, of which the basis is a combination of whale-oil soap and petroleum suspended in lime wash. There can be no possible virtue in the former, except as a preventive against possible fungous diseases; of the sanitive value of the latter we can also afford to be skeptical, as the mechanical sealing of the borer’s holes, and thereby cutting off the air supply, would only result in driving the worm sooner to the surface. The odor of petroleum and particularly of whale-oil soap is so repellent, however, to most insects that its prophylactic virtues would undoubtedly be great.