special treatment (fermentation and drying) to obtain the bean of
commerce, that it becomes brittle.



_Varieties of Theobroma Cacao._

As mentioned above, the pods and seeds of Theobroma Cacao trees show a
marked variation, and in every country the botanist has studied these
variations and classified the trees according to the shape and colour of
the pods and seeds. The existence of so many classifications has led to
a good deal of confusion, and we are indebted to Van Hall for the
simplest way of clearing up these difficulties. He accepts the
classification first given by Morris, dividing the trees into two
varieties--Criollo and Forastero:

[Illustration: DRAWINGS OF TYPICAL PODS, illustrating varieties.
CRIOLLO
FORASTERO
FORASTERO (CALABACILLO VARIETY)]



_Extremes of Characteristics._

                _Criollo._         _Forastero._

(Old Red, Caracas, etc.)        Grading from Cundeamor
                                  (bottle-necked) to Calabacillo
                                  (smooth).

_Pod walls._  Thin and warty.   Thick and woody.

_Beans._      Large and plump.  Small and flat.
              White.            Heliotrope to purple.
              Sweet.            Astringent.

The cacao of the criollo variety has pods the walls of which are thin
and warty, with ten distinct furrows. The seeds or beans are white as
ivory throughout, round and plump, and sweet to taste. The forastero
variety includes many sub-varieties, the kind most distinct from the
criollo having pods, the walls of which are thick and woody, the surface
smooth, the furrows indistinct, and the shape globular. The seeds in
these pods are purple in colour, flat in appearance, and bitter to
taste. This is a very convenient classification. Personally I believe it
would be possible to find pods varying by almost imperceptible
gradations from the finest, purest, criollo to the lowest form of
forastero (namely, calabacillo). The criollo yields the finest and
rarest kind of cacao, but as sometimes happens with refined types in
nature, it is a rather delicate tree, especially liable to canker and
bark diseases, and this accounts for the predominance of the forastero
in the cacao plantations of the world.



_The Cacao Plantation._

One can spend happy days on a cacao estate. "Are you going into the
cocoa?" they ask, just as in England we might enquire, "Are you going
into the corn?"

[Illustration: TROPICAL FOREST, TRINIDAD.
This has to be cleared before planting begins.]

Coconut plantations and sugar estates make a strong appeal to the
imagination, but for peaceful beauty they cannot compare with the cacao
plantation. True, coconut plantations are very lovely--the palms are so
graceful, the leaves against the sky so like a fine etching--but "the
slender coco's drooping crown of plumes" is altogether foreign to
English eyes. Sugar estates are generally marred by the prosaic factory
in the background. They are dead level plains, and the giant grass
affords no shade from the relentless sun. Whereas the leaves of the
cacao tree are large and numerous, so that even in the heat of the day,
it is comparatively cool and pleasant under the cacao.

Cacao plantations present in different countries every variety of
appearance--from that of a wild forest in which the greater portion of
the trees are cacao, to the tidy and orderly plantation. In some of the
Trinidad plantations the trees are planted in parallel lines twelve feet
apart, with a tree every twelve feet along the line; and as you push
your way through the plantation the apparently irregularly scattered
trees are seen to flash momentarily into long lines. In other parts of
the world, for example, in Grenada and Surinam, the ground may be kept
so tidy and free from weeds that they have the appearance of gardens.



_Clearing the Land._

When the planter has chosen a suitable site, an exercise requiring
skill, the forest has to be cleared. The felling of great trees and the
clearing of the wild tangle of undergrowth is arduous work. It is well
to leave the trees on the ridges for about sixty feet on either side,
and thus form a belt of trees to act as wind screen. Cacao trees are as
sensitive to a draught as some human beings, and these "_wind breaks_"
are often deliberately grown--Balata, Poui, Mango (Trinidad), Galba
(Grenada), Wild Pois Doux (Martinique), and other leafy trees being
suitable for this purpose.