Very little chocolate is now collected from wild plants, and cacao plantations are important projects in tropical agriculture. Because of its many varieties, some nearly worthless, the business was rather speculative until a few good sorts were perpetuated. Much valuable work on this plant and the isolation of many good varieties has been done by the Department of Agriculture in Jamaica, British West Indies. Cacao plantations are usually in moist, low regions near the coast, preferably protected from strong winds, to which the plant objects. The trees are set about ten to fifteen feet apart each way and begin bearing after the fifth or sixth year. The young plants are always shaded, often by bananas, which are cut off as the trees mature. The tree will not thrive unless the temperature is about 80 degrees or more and there should be preferably 75 inches of rainfall a year, about twice that at New York. Chocolate-growing regions are apt to be unhealthy for whites, and native labor is practically always used. The business is very profitable, but still somewhat speculative. 3. FIBERS Not only do plants furnish us with food and drink, but most of our clothing is made from plant products. There is annually produced twice as much cotton as wool, while linen is made from the fibers in the stem of the flax plant, which is also the source of linseed oil. Fibers occur in many different parts of plants, but most often in the stem, or in the bark of the stem. Some occur in the wood itself, as for instance that in spruce wood, from which news paper is made. Others are found in the attachments of the seed, such as cotton. Some are very coarse, such as that of _Carex stricta_, a swamp sedge from which Crex rugs are woven. Others like that of the leaves of the pineapple are as fine as silk, and in the Philippine Islands where much pineapple fiber is produced, some of the most beautiful undergarments and women’s wear are made from it. Again, others, such as Manila hemp, furnish us with cordage of great strength. COTTON It has been stated, perhaps a little rashly, that the value of the cotton crop in our Southern States exceeds all other agricultural products of the country. Whether this be true or no matters not, as cotton production and manufacture is certainly one of the most important industries of the world. Our own New England mills and those in Lancashire total an enormous volume of manufactured cotton goods, and what the stoppage of the cotton crop means to these industrial centers was shown even so far back as the Civil War, when the “cotton riots” in Lancashire were noised all over the world. Cotton is the most important of all fiber plants.