Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

THE GOLD COASr 79 importance. That in the past the natives have generally taken no care in seed selection and have ignored the most elementary principles of agriculture, such as drainage and keeping the plantations clean, is well known. One is justified in the fear that, just as in the Middle Ages, in spite of the wise teaching of the few, because of ignorance and insanitary conditions, the whole population of a city was sometimes wiped out by a plague, so the millions of cacao trees on the Gold Coast may suffer a slower, but equally sure, destruction. So far, however, because fresh. areas are continually coming into bearing, the output increases by leaps and bounds. On the one hånd we have the experts trembling andcrying, “ Wolf! ” ; on the otherthe mass of illiterate natives lacking in foresight and blind to a thousand dangers. The natives appear to regard pests and diseases as being caused by evil spirits, and, as charms cannot be obtained to remove the evil, they are resigned to it, and abandon the plantations so infected. Although a few plantations have recovered when thus abandoned and neglected, there are obviously the very gravest risks that this procedure will spread infection. There are optimists who put their faith in nature, believing it has a bias in favour of healthy trees ; and if nature fails, they trust that the breaks, due to forest growth between the areas planted, will prevent infection. spreading. Neither faith nor benevolent feelings will prevent tbe increase of disease if applied knowledge is lacking. Ask the planters in countries where cacao has been grown for a Century or more. Plantations, as they know well, are not saved by good intentions. The average annual value of the cacao crop in the Gold Coast for the five years 1918—1922 was six million sterling. It may be remembered that the coffee crop in