Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

CHAPTER VIII THE COST OF CACAO PRODUCTION The cost of cacao production has been neglected in most modern works on cacao. The exceptions are Hart’s book on Cacao, which gives a number of valuable figures, and Hamel-Smith’s Cocoa Planting in the West Indies, which, though written over 20 years ago, contains advice to the would-be planter that is as good to-day as when it was written. There appears to be no book which gives detailed costs of creating and carrying on a plantation. The amount of care taken varies so greatly in different countries, that an average figure would have little significance. It appeared, therefore, that the best procedure would be to give the figures for one or two places where first-class cacao is produced, and Ceylon and Trinidad were chosen as illustrating costs in producing areas where sound methods of culture are practised. The author is indebted to Mr. E. W. Keith of the Kondesalle Estate, Kandy, Ceylon, for working out for inclusion in this book— 1. The costs of opening up and keeping up an estate in Ceylon for the first five years, that is, until the tree begins to bear. 2. A Capital and revenue account showing the first five years of bearing. 3. The cost of producing 1 cwt. of cacao on an estate in füll bearing, the yield of which is 5 cwts. per acre. The whole drama of cacao production is brought into the lime-light by these figures, and, although they apply specifically to Ceylon, where the cacao bean is of a very fine kind, and the methods of cultivation the most 95