Page:The food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa.djvu/68

Rh has been made, and a bean or so extracted, the animal passes on to similarly attack another pod; such pods rot at once. Snakes generally abound in the cacao regions, and are never killed, being regarded as the planters best friends, from their hostility to his animal foes. A boa will probably destroy more than the most zealous hunter's gun.



From its twelfth to its sixtieth year, or later, each tree will bear from fifty to a hundred and fifty pods, according to the season, each pod containing from thirty-six to forty-two beans. Eleven pods will produce about a pound of cured beans, and the average yield of a large estate will be, in some cases, four hundredweight