Tropical vegetation yields another beverage in cocoa. The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) is a native of Central America. This tree has several distinctive characteristics. It blossoms throughout the year and bears fruit of all ages which successively ripens, as has been noted of other tropical plant foods. The trees grow from seeds, but do not bear until the fifth or sixth year. Then a myriad of red blossoms make a large yellow fruit (nearly 1 ft. long and 1/3 ft. wide). This is pulpy and contains from two to four dozen seeds. These are the cocoa-beans. The fruit grows on the trunks of the trees and on the main limbs, never at the end of the small branches, that could not sustain its weight.

The tree itself requires particular conditions to thrive. It needs air in plenty and light, but must be protected from the excessive direct rays of the sun. On cocoa plantations the tree is sheltered by planting taller shade trees about it. The tree itself is 14-30 ft. high and 1/2-1 ft. through. Fertile, protected valleys are sought for its cultivation. It grows wild under the conditions propitious for its development. Though it requires other trees to shade it, it is the tree that itself is used to support the vanilla plant that is a parasite, so grows only on trees, though this takes its sustenance from the air through its aerial roots. Cocoa and vanilla are thus cultivated together.

The history of the use of plants for food often reveals the lack of earlier communication between countries and the slow interchange of their products and customs. Cocoa was found in Mexico by Cortes, but it came to us by passing to Spain, thence to Italy, France, England, and back to America.

Branch of cocoa-tree.