Herr Fredericksky most kindly showed me all over his
plantation. When it was first started the cautious planter
then in charge planted coffee and oil-palms so as to have
something to fall back on should the coffee fail, and to a considerable
extent coffee has failed throughout Victoria. It
gets afflicted with a sort of blight analogous to honey-dew,
and on this honey-dew grows a large black mildew which
mats the coffee-berries together and ruins them, although it
■ does not seem to injure the health of the tree much. But
cacao flourishes exceedingly in the Victoria district, and has
so far got no disease. And so the coffee in this plantation, and
in the native plantations round Ambas Bay, is being replaced
by cacao, and to such purpose has this plan been followed,
that the profit on the latter product exported by the small
native growers last year amounted to £ 1,000 English, and
this large plantation ships on an average 400 bafcs a month.
During the two flushes which occur in the year, as many as 600
and 650 bags a month would be shipped; during the intermediate
seasons 200 to 300.
The enterprise with which capital has been expended here,
and the judiciousness with which it has been employed, is very
remarkable for a West Coast undertaking, wherein, as a general
rule, there is usually one without the other, or a notable
absence of both.
There are near to the living house large, well-built houses
with the proper machinery for drying the cocoa, after it has
been properly fermented and washed in another house, that is
away at the further end of the plantation where the fermenting
house is established, because of a suitable little river ; and
wonderful to relate these two sets of houses are connected
by an excellent tramway, very carefully and soundly made,
and ten times pleasanter and safer to travel on than the Conga
Free State Railway. The little cars on which you, or bags of
cocoa, sit are pushed by energetic labourers ; a distinct improvement
on West African steam-engines. After conscientiously
doing the drying and the fermenting sheds, and enjoying the
faint but pleasant smell of the mauve-coloured cocoa in heaps
on the floors in various states of fermentation, we proceeded to
seriously study cacao growing; and I was taken by the two
gigantic German gentlemen over acre after acre of plants 9 van° us sta&es of growth, from those just showing leaf
above the ground, to those whose beautiful golden fruit were
eing gathered by gangs of labourers imported from the
Batanga region, the Kru Coast, Sierra Leone and other places.'
it had not been for driver ants, I feel sure I should have
acquired enough information that afternoon to enable me to
go and set up a plantation on my own account and make
H J R H | : but as ft was< 1 just made a mental'
ote that it was well to cut down your forest to start a clearing
£ , m h.e midd e of the dry season ; then let the trees and
bush-wood dry a little; and then set them on fire. Then, ju s t*
before the rains I was to plant three cacao beans in a hole,
and I learnt with pleasure that I need not bother to remove
the gigantic charred tree-trunks that layabout in a glorious*
con usion— in fact, it was advisable to leave them, as' they*
afforded shelter for the young plants from an excess of sun ■ and
l A o n e T t n0t ,°!iher Pknting my Series ° f three beans
° , holf S tldy llnes> but might just stick them in, in a
forr f h ^ Wherever 1 felt disP°sed. This was a com-
t, for how any one was to do otherwise with the ground overlaid
witn a confused sort of network of trees, from sixty to one
I don’t kn£6t TBndS 3 threC t0 thifty I don t know Then when these seedlingfsG ehta idn actitraciunmedfe rae nsucef-,1
cc leeaarreedd ^poifeecc e off groun d-at 0 nursCearrye, fuwHhye trrea ntshPelya nwteedre i ntoto bae
planted m proper rows. Just as we reached the nursery and
my education was flowing on in a peaceful, pleasant stream
rty-eigl* burning hot pinchers were inserted into me and I
new joy s short life was overpast ” for that afternoon, in other
words that I had got into a train of drivers. Resolving to
and be st/ ° n& 1 said nothing, and seeing that there
were no more of the enemy on the ground immediately round
me, I lived my tormentors down, and did my best to keep up
tZhatt Pd! iTd ianTtere s°tf imntee rj£uSstt “t hCeanC aw° ’a bs utw Whether eithoenrl yo ft hminyg
companions had got drivers on them. 7
o f ^ n ment^ ned drivers- They had a little difference
opinion over coffee disease, and a lengthy discussion on
s s