is now grown in many parts of the tropics, reference to which is
made in another chapter. The conditions, however, do not greatly vary,
and there are probably many lands in the tropical belt where it is yet
unknown that possess soil well suited to its extended cultivation.

The cacao-tree grows wild in the forests of Central America, and
varieties have been found also in Jamaica and other West Indian
islands, and in South America. It does not thrive more than fifteen
degrees north or south of the equator, and even within these limits it
is not very successfully grown more than 600 feet above the sea-level;
in many districts where sugar formerly monopolized the plains, it was
supposed that cocoa needed an altitude of at least 200 feet, but
experiments of planting on the old sugar estates and other low-lying
places are generally successful where the soil is good, as in
Trinidad, Cuba, and British Guiana. It has been found that the expense
saved in roads, labour, and transit on the level has been very
considerable in comparison with that incurred on some of the hill
estates.

In appearance the cacao-tree is not greatly unlike one of our own
orchard trees, and trained by the pruning knife it grows similar in
shape to a well-kept apple tree, no very low boughs being left, so
that a man on horseback can generally pass freely down the long
glades. Left to nature, it will in good soil reach a height of over
twenty feet, and its branches will extend for ten feet from the
centre.

[Illustration--Black and White Plate: Ceylon: Nursery of Cacao
Seedlings in Baskets of plaited Palm Leaf.]

The best soil is that made by the decomposition of volcanic rock, so
that it is a common sight to find areas strewn with large boulders
turned into a cocoa plantation of great fertility; but the best trees
of all lie along the _vegas_ which intersect the hills, where the soil
is deep, and the stream winding among the trees supplies natural
irrigation. The tree also grows well in loams and the richer marls,
but will not thrive on clay and other heavy soils.

The cacao is one of the tenderest of tropical growths, and will not
flourish in any exposed position, for which reason large shade belts
are left along exposed ridges and other parts of a hill estate, thus
greatly reducing the total area under cultivation, in comparison with
an estate of equal extent on the level plains, where no shade belts
are necessary.

The beans are planted either