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.