The preparation of a large quantity of cocoa of even quality is so greatly dependent upon the similarity of the treatment and conditions at a time when the material is undergoing fermentation and drying, that it is almost imperative that a large quantity should be prepared at one operation. This is an important consideration in British West Africa, where native plantations range in size from a few trees to about five acres in extent, the average being perhaps about a hundred trees, or, roughly, one-tenth of an acre. The production of each plantation is at present prepared independently, and the result of one picking of pods, if all mature, is often quite inadequate to yield sufficient for fermentation purposes, it being recognised that a few hundredweights of beans in their pulp are necessary for the satisfactory accomplishment of the operation. The same difficulty has presented itself in the West Indies with regard to the crops picked by owners of small plantations, and arrangements are usually made by some larger concern in the neighbourhood to purchase the pods from them. The establishment of central fermenting and drying houses, controlled by the shippers themselves, would perhaps get over the difficulty on the Gold Coast and result in a superior class of cocoa being produced. The planters would doubtless consent to sell their pods, instead of performing the laborious work of preparation themselves, and would probably be able to extend the size of their individual plantations, which, by reason of their inability to prepare more cocoa, single-handed, they have been unable, hitherto, to do. The efforts of the Administration to improve the preparation have been somewhat handicapped by the system employed by some merchants of securing the crop for themselves, by money advances, with but little regard to its preparation, and of pooling the produce. Cocoa planting has revolutionised the native system of land titles. Where only annual crops were under consideration, a short, temporary occupation with subsequent reversion to tribal ownership seemed an adequate provision, but with the establishment of permanent cocoa plantations the planter claimed perpetual and undivided proprietorship. Further information regarding Gold Coast cocoa will be found in the _Bulletin of the Imperial Institute_, 1907, p. 361; 1912, pp. 240, 556; 1913, p. 154; 1914, p. 387; 1915, pp. 149, 645; 1916, p. 123; 1917, p. 117; 1919, pp. 49, 102; and Johnson’s _Cocoa_, 1912. =Exports of Cocoa.=—The exports of cocoa from 1900 to 1919 are as follows: Year Tons Year Tons Year Tons 1900 536 1907 9,355 1914 52,888 1901 980 1908 12,743 1915 77,278 1902 2,396 1909 20,213 1916 72,162 1903 2,276 1910 22,631 1917 90,964 1904 5,112 1911 39,726 1918 66,342 1905 5,093 1912 38,647 1919 176,155 1906 8,975 1913 50,554