Although cacao and cacao products have always been held in the highest esteem, ever since they first became known in Europe, yet price considerations long prevented them from enjoying the same widespread popularity among the lower classes as tea and coffee. Thanks, however, to the improved means of transport established in the course of the last fifty years, which has cheapened all exotic produce, the demand for these wares has of late been more frequent and urgent, and is reflected in the constantly increasing influx of cacao on the European markets and the systematic opening out of new regions to the raw material, just as corresponding extensions in the factory world contribute towards a reduction in the cost of the products. Hence cacao may now be described as a luxury within the reach of everyman. Its diffusion among all grades of the population may be regarded as a great blessing, for in it has arisen a new [Transcriber’s Note: a line is missing here] merely a stimulant, like tea or coffee, but a beverage in the proper sense of the term, analytically so established. It will accordingly prove of interest to glance through the returns in connection with the trade in these goods, their importation and exportation, commercial values of the same, and the relative consumption of cacao, tea and coffee. Such figures are always at hand. The surprisingly rapid growth of the cacao cultivation, and the manufacture of cacao products, is e. g. at once apparent in statistics furnished by the French government. In 1857 the number of 5,304,207 kilos of beans were consumed there. The importations of the year 1895, on the other hand, amounted to 32,814,724 kilos, having in the space of 38 years increased more than sixfold. Of this quantity, almost the half, comprising about 15,234,163 kilos, is disposed of retail. Turning to the trade in Germany, the cacao industry here and its consumption,[19] we are again greeted with cheery prospects. According to the official inquiry, German trade in Cacao products for the years 1907-1910 is shown in the following table: ~Table~ 1.