The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom - Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on by P. L. Simmonds
page 71 of 1438 (04%)
page 71 of 1438 (04%)
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soil; and about thirteen or fourteen feet in soil of inferior quality.
This is almost the only tree in nature to which the enlivening beams of the sun are obnoxious. It requires to be sheltered from their ardour; and the mode of combining this protection with the principles of fertility, forms a very essential part of the skill which its cultivation demands. The cacao tree is mingled with other trees, which guard it from the rays of the sun, without depriving it of the benefit of their heat. The _Erythrina_ and the banana are employed for this purpose. The latter, by the rapidity of its growth, and the magnitude of its leaves, protect it for the first year. The erythrina endures at least as long as the cacao; it is not every soil, however, that agrees with it. It perishes after a while in sandy and clayey ground, but it flourishes in such as combine those two ingredients. In the Antilles this protection cannot be given to cacao, as it would expose the plantation to destruction by every hurricane. Besides, the cacao succeeds but indifferently there, and is much less oily than in other parts. The quality of the soil, and the species of the erythrina, should determine the distance at which they ought to be placed. That kind which the Spaniards call _bucare anaveo_, is planted in a fertile soil, at the distance of two alleys, that is to say, at each second range of cacao trees. That which they call _bucare peonio_, is placed at three alleys in good soils (about forty-eight French feet). The former species of erythrina is that which elevates itself the highest. The second species has many thorns, the upper surface of the leaf is darker and the lower whiter. Both kinds should be cut in the |
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