My friend--if he will allow me to call him so--Mr.John Law has shown what extraordinary returns may be obtained from improved cacao-growing; at least, so far to his own satisfaction that he is himself trying the experiment.

He calculates {318b} that 200 acres, at a maximum outlay of about 11,000 dollars spread over six years, and diminishing from that time till the end of the tenth year, should give, for fifty years after that, a net income of 6800 dollars; and then 'the industrious planter may sit down,' as I heartily hope Mr. Law will do, 'and enjoy the fruits of his labour.' Mr.Law is of opinion that, to give such a return, the cacao must be farmed in a very different way from the usual plan; that the trees must not be left shaded, as now, by Bois Immortelles, sixty to eighty feet high, during their whole life.

The trees, he says with reason, impoverish the soil by their roots.

The shade causes excess of moisture, chills, weakens and retards the plants; encourages parasitic moss and insects; and, moreover, is least useful in the very months in which the sun is hottest, viz.

February, March, and April, which are just the months in which the Bois Immortelles shed their leaves.