Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

THE GOLD COAST 75 “ just right ” and that a fatherly Agricultural Department has given many seeds and much instruction to the natives. It may be that the imitative natives noted the pioneer efforts in cacao planting of a handful of Europeans, of which those of Mr. W. F. Hutchison. in 1885 and Mr. J. H. Batty in 1888 were the earliest. If we allow these advantages, it still remains a modern miracle—a lesson both to statesmen and economists (the reader will note the distinction). “ Cacao,” says Mr. Tudhope, the Director of Agriculture, “ has indeed had a great civilising influence.” The natives were Wanderers, in part warlike—-notably that tribe of warriors, the Ashantis—practising a very primitive form of agriculture, clearing the bush, growing food-stuffs, and then passing on to clear fresh bush and make gardens anew. They settled down to cacao-growing, became a small nation of peasant proprietors, and after thirty years’ effort have, as far as quantity of output is concerned, outpaced all other countries and left them breathing hard in the rear. They promise to produce half the cacao in the world. Indeed it is said they do produce more than this quantity now, but the cost of carrying it to the port is such that only a portion of the crop is exported. This is a difficulty with which they have always had to contend—they have had to get their cacao to the port entirely without the assistance of pack animals, for these cannot live because of the deadly tsetse fly, and a large part of the energy of the people was, and is, absorbed in porterage. Ihis mis-direction of energy has been greatly reduced by the enterprise of the Government in building railways and making a network of roads suitable for motor traffic. The quantity of the cacao produced is enormous, but what of the quality ? It is true that the bean of