The Guatemalan cacao is claimed to be the very best in the world. It is not cultivated to any great extent at present, although the propagation is on the increase, as Ecuador practically controls the trade. The best conditions are an altitude of from eight hundred to two thousand feet and a soil rich in moisture, or capable of irrigation. Virgin lands from which forests have been cut are the best. It requires six years for the trees to mature, although they will occasionally bear in less time. The cultivation does not require nearly so much labour as coffee, although care must be taken not to hurt the “bean” when it is removed from the pod. One day is given for “fermentation;” after which they are dried in the sun for several days. The cacao is then ready for the market to furnish our delicious chocolate preparations. The pods are from ten to twelve inches long and contain many beans; they resemble a musk melon in appearance, and grow from the branches and trunks of the trees. Nutmegs have proved a success on the Island of Trinidad and would do just as well here. The trees require at least eighty inches of rain annually. They will produce nutmegs in eight to ten years and will then bear and improve for a century. Each tree will yield from one thousand to five thousand nuts in a season, in size varying from sixty-eight to one hundred and twenty in a pound. Tobacco grows well and of good quality at an elevation of from one thousand to two thousand feet. Common and sweet potatoes, yams, beans, breadfruit, squashes, melons, tomatoes, peppers, the _aguacate_, or alligator pear (weighing about a pound), the _granadilla_ (fruit of the passion flower), and many other fruits and vegetables can easily be cultivated at a fair profit. Japan, India, or Ceylon can furnish nothing more fascinating or stranger in their vegetable kingdom than this favoured land. The fruits are simply wonderful in variety and perfection. The glowing sun and ardent breath of the tropics ask little aid from the hand of man in perfecting their products. One eats eggs, custard and butter off the trees. The mango is nearly as abundant and prolific as the banana in some places. It grows on a very handsome tree, the leaves being long, lanceolate, polished, and hanging in dense masses of dark-green foliage. In size it is like a full-grown apple tree. The fruit is about the size of an egg plum, and when ripe is yellow in colour and very juicy. They grow in long, pendent branches, and the rich, juicy, golden-meated fruit is not only attractive to the eye, but delightful to the palate.