قراءة كتاب Cacao Culture in the Philippines
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
fruit production. In this I am opposed to Professor Hart,1 who seems to think that stable manures are those only that may be used with a free hand.
We have many safe ways of applying nitrogen through the medium of various catch crops of pulse or beans, with the certainty that we can never overload the soil with more than the adjacent tree roots can take up and thoroughly assimilate. When the time comes that the orchard so shades the ground that crops can no longer be grown between the rows, then, in preference to stable manures I would recommend cotton-seed cake or “poonac,” the latter being always obtainable in this Archipelago.
While the most desirable form in which potash can be applied is in the form of the sulphate, excellent results have been had with the use of Kainit or Stassfurth salts, and as a still more available substitute, wood ashes is suggested. When forest lands are near, the underbrush may be cut and burned in a clearing or wherever it may be done without detriment to the standing timber, and the ashes scattered in the orchard before they have been leached by rains. The remaining essential of phosphoric acid in the form of superphosphates will for some years to come necessarily be the subject of direct importation. In the cheap form of phosphate slag it is reported to have been used with great success in both Grenada and British Guiana, and would be well worthy of trial here.
Lands very rich in humus, as some of our forest valleys are, undoubtedly carry ample nitrogenous elements of fertility to maintain the trees at a high standard of growth for many years, but provision is indispensable for a regular supply of potash and phosphoric acid as soon as the trees come into heavy bearing. It is to them and not to the nitrogen that we look for the formation of strong, stocky, well-ripened wood capable of fruit bearing and for fruit that shall be sound, highly flavored, and well matured.
The bearing life of such a tree will surely be healthfully prolonged for many years beyond one constantly driven with highly stimulating foods, and in the end amply repay the grower for the vigilance, toil, and original expenditure of money necessary to maintaining a well-grown and well-appointed cacao plantation.
1 “Cacao,” p. 16.
Supplemental Notes.
New Varieties.—Cacao is exclusively grown from seed, and it is only by careful selection of the most valuable trees that the planter can hope to make the most profitable renewals or additions to his plantations. It is by this means that many excellent sorts are now in cultivation in different regions that have continued to vary from the three original, common forms of Theobroma cacao, until now it is a matter of some difficulty to differentiate them.
Residence.—The conditions for living in the Philippines offer peculiar, it may be said unexampled, advantages to the planter of cacao. The climate as a whole is remarkably salubrious, and sites are to be found nearly everywhere for the estate buildings, sufficiently elevated to obviate the necessity of living near stagnant waters.
Malarial fevers are relatively few, predacious animals unknown, and insects and reptiles prejudicial to human life or health extraordinarily few in number. In contrast to this we need only call attention to the entire Caribbean coast of South America, where the climate and soil conditions are such that the cacao comes to a superlative degree of perfection, and yet the limits of its further extension have probably been reached by the insuperable barrier of a climate so insalubrious that the Caucasian’s life is one endless conflict with disease, and when not engaged in active combat with some form of malarial poisoning his energies are concentrated upon battle with the various insect or animal pests that make life a burden in such regions.
Nonresidence upon a cacao plantation is an equivalent term for ultimate failure. Every operation demands the exercise of the observant eye and the directing hand of a master, but there is no field of horticultural effort that offers more assured reward, or that will more richly repay close study and the application of methods wrought out as the sequence of those studies.
Estimated Cost and Revenues Derived from a Cacao Plantation.
Estimates of expenses in establishing a cacao farm in the Visayas and profits after the fifth year. The size of the farm selected is 16 hectares, the amount of land prescribed by Congress of a single public land entry. The cost of procuring such a tract of land is as yet undetermined and can not be reckoned in the following tables. The prices of the crop are estimated at 48 cents per kilo, which is the current price for the best grades of cacao in the world’s markets. The yield per tree is given as 2 catties, or 1.25 kilos, a fair and conservative estimate for a good tree, with little or no cultivation. The prices for unskilled labor are 25 per cent in advance of the farm hand in the Visayan islands. No provision is made for management or supervision, as the owner will, it is assumed, act as manager.
Charges to capital account are given for the second, third, and fourth year, but no current expenses are given, for other crops are to defray operating expenses until the cacao trees begin to bear. No estimate of residence is given. All accounts are in United States currency.
| Expendable the first year. | |||
| Capital account: | |||
| Clearing of average brush and timber land, at $15 per hectare | $340.00 | ||
| Four carabaos, plows, harrows, cultivators, carts, etc. | 550.00 | ||
| Breaking and preparing land, at $5 per hectare | 80.00 | ||
| Opening main drainage canals, at $6 per hectare | 96.00 | ||
| Tool house and storeroom 200.00 | |||
| Purchase and planting 10,000 abacá stools, at 2 cents each | 200.00 | ||
| Seed purchase, rearing and planting 12,000 cacao, at 3 cents each | 360.00 | ||
| Contingent and incidental | 174.00 | ||
| Total | |||