Tropical agriculture : a treatise on the culture, preparation, commerce, and consumption of the principal products of the vegetable kingdom / by P.L. Simmonds.

  • Peter Simmonds
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tropical agriculture : a treatise on the culture, preparation, commerce, and consumption of the principal products of the vegetable kingdom / by P.L. Simmonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    little fermentation, as it is naturally of a mucli finer fiavour, but its produce is small, and the tree is said to be a slow bearer, and easily destroyed by disease or bad weather.* So many new cocoa walks have been planted, and small established ones enlarged in the last three or four years, that the supply in a year or two should much more than balance the falling off in exhausted plantations. A considerable amount of good fresh land has of late been taken up for, and laid down in, cocoa in the country south of and between Arima and the East coast—sufficient to enable planters to keep pace with the increasing consumption at home. They are com- mencing to plant the cocoa tree in the East Indies, but it will be some years before a crop is reaped, and whatever is gathered will, for many years, suffice only for eastern consumption, including that of Australia. Jamaica is talking of reviving her long-abandoned cacao cultivation, and Dominica will do well to follow her example, having rich soil in sheltered dells, well adapted, to all appearance, to favour this delicate plant. But the islands to the north of Trinidad must take into their calculation a risk from which that island and Grenada are almost free—that of hurricane blasts. The quality of Trinidad cacao maintains its reputation. We hear of extensive irriga- tion improvements on Mr. Needham’s fine property at the head of Santa Cruz, well known as San Antonio. Exjports from Trinidad,—In Trinidad cocoa is the second great staple of production, and although the annual crop necessarily fluctuates, according to weather and favourable seasons, yet it will be seen the shipments have doubled in the last quarter of a century. The following figures give the annual export crops : Lbs. 1851 5,552,437 1852 6,823,695 1853 4,904,719 1854 3,379,159 1855 4,547,060 1856 4,575,000 1857 4,942,600 1858 5,403,600 1859 5,893,400 1860 4,135,921 1861 6,530,906 1862 3,849,223 Lbs. 1863 7,484,941 1864 5,090,017 1865 6,760,287 1866 5,991,673 1867 8,016,237 1868 7,614,947 1869 6,339,022 1870 7,470,028 1871 6,422,038 1872 7,182,404 1873 9,238,141 1874 11,191,431 Taking decennial periods the shipments have been as follows : Lbs. 1821 1,214,093 1831 1,888,852 1841 2,493,302 Lbs. 1851 5,552,437 1861 6,530,906 1871 6,422,038 There is a singular discrepancy between the returns of shipments, as published by the Colonial Office, which I have given above in detail from the twelfth number of the ‘ Statistical Abstract for the several Colonial Possessions,’ and those published in the island papers, for * The late Mr. Herman Crugei*, Colonial botanist, in the Trinidad Catalogue of Products shown at the London International Exhibition, 1862,
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