Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/179

 the arroba of 32lbs., may be taken as the average. The management of a plantation requires very few hands; the tree yields three crops a-year, namely, one each in March, June, and September; but the June crop often fails, and those of the other months are very precarious. In the intervals between harvest-times the plantations require weeding; the principal difficulty is to keep the trees free from woody creepers and epiphytes, but especially from parasitic plants of the Loranthaceæ group, the same family to which our miseltoe belongs, and which are called "pés de passarinho," or "little birds' feet," from their pretty orange and red flowers resembling in shape and arrangement the three toes of birds. When the fruit is ready for gathering, neighbours help each other, and so each family is able to manage its own little plantation without requiring slaves. It appeared to me that cacao-growing would be an employment well suited to the habits and constitutions of European immigrants. All the work is done under shade; but it would yield a poor livelihood unless a better style of cultivation and preparation were introduced than that now prevailing here. The fruit is of oblong shape, and six to eight inches in length; the seeds are enveloped in a mass of white pulp which makes a delicious lemonade when mixed with water, and when boiled down produces an excellent jelly.

I found many interesting insects in the cacaoal; the most handsome was the Salamis jucunda, a magnificent butterfly with sickle-shaped wings, which flies with great rapidity, but is readily taken when quietly feeding