CHAPTER XXII

GRAPES, CACAO, AND VANILLA

In spite of the fact that the Grape is indigenous to Cuba, prohibitory laws on the part of Spain discouraged its culture in all of her colonies, so that vine culture in the Island has had no opportunity to thrive. The few isolated specimens found occasionally in gardens have produced excellent fruit, especially in the neighborhood of Guantanamo, where French refugees from Santo Domingo introduced a few plants in the beginning of the 19th century.

Realizing the importance of grape culture in any country where possible, Dr. Calvino, Director of the Government Experiment Station, in the first days of his administration, sent into the forests of Cuba for healthy specimens of the wild grape, indigenous to the country, known as the “Uva Cimarron.” These were brought to the Station and set out in soil especially prepared. After less than a year had elapsed, four or five lanes, several hundred feet in length, for which trellises of wire have been provided, showed wonderful growth. This native sour grape has simply covered the supports with a wilderness of leaves, vines and fruit.

Correspondence with Professor Munson of Texas, one of the most noted grape specialists of the United States, resulted in bringing to Cuba a dozen or more varieties of choice grapes from that section. These, together with others brought from France, Spain and other European countries, have been planted at the Station, where, in spite of the change of climate and conditions, they seem to thrive. The Director is planning to bud the wild stock of the Cuban grape with all of these choice imported varieties, in order to ascertain which may give the best results in this country.

Several acres are devoted to this experimental grape field and have been supplied with convenient trellises and facilities for irrigation. The Director and those interested with him are much encouraged with the present stage of the experiment and have great confidence in their ability to establish successfully in Cuba many of the choice grapes of the world, although the medium of the vigorous Cimarron grape of the island. If these experiments prove successful, there is no reason why many of the hillsides of this country should not be converted into immense vineyards, and the cultivation of grapes become a prominent and permanent source of agricultural wealth.

Although intoxication among the inhabitants of Cuba is almost unknown, the drinking of wine, as in all other Latin American countries, has been a custom from time immemorial and the annual importation of wine, most of which comes from Spain, approximates $2,500,000 a year. Should the culture of grapes in Cuba meet with the success expected, there is no reason why this industry, together with that of wine making, might not be carried on in connection with coffee growing in the mountains, since the soils of the fertile hills throughout the Island are adapted to the culture of both at the same time.

In the matter of popular beverages it is somewhat interesting to note that in each hemisphere, nature provided trees of the forest, the fruit of which for countless centuries has furnished to man beverages that today are almost as essential as food. In fact the Cacao of the western hemisphere is a very nutritious food and drink at the same time. While coffee is indigenous to Arabia and Abyssinia, whence the trees have been carried into nearly all parts of the tropical world, cacao, on the other hand, was indigenous to the West Indies, to Mexico, Central America and probably to all countries bordering on the Caribbean. The shores of the latter great sea or basin of the ocean, with their rich warm valleys formed by the rivers tributary to it, are the natural home of the cacoa, botanically known as Theobroma, or food of the gods.

When Cortez forced himself as an unwelcome guest upon Montezuma, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, he found a delicious drink called caca-huatl, made by the Aztecs from the seeds of this really marvellous plant. The taste of chocolate is so delicate and so palatable that fondness for the drink does not have to be acquired in any country. From the West Indies cacao, or cocoa beans, were carried to Spain and the cultivation of the plant was introduced into the warmer latitudes of the eastern hemisphere. The government of Spain, with its short-sighted greed of those days, succeeded in keeping the manufacture of this drink more or less secret from the outside world, and for chocolate demanded prices so high that only the rich could afford to buy it, retarding thus its general use in Europe for nearly a century.

The consumption of chocolate today, both as a beverage and as a food, especially in the manufacture of confections, has assumed throughout the world very large proportions. Approximately 150,000,000 pounds of chocolate and cocoa produced from the cacao trees of the Caribbean basin are consumed in civilized countries, while the demand for the beans is increasing by rapid bounds every year.

There is perhaps no form of nutritious food more condensed and complete than that of the better grade of chocolate. Nine-tenths of the content of this wonderful bean are assimilated by the system, hence its value not only to travelers but also to armies and forces in the field, who demand condensed foods like chocolate, with a large amount of nourishment in a very small bulk. An analysis of cacao yields of carbohydrates, 37%; of fat, 29%; and of protein, 22%. In the better grades of chocolate, used for both food and drink, there is practically no waste.

From the above it may be readily seen that the cultivation of cacao, from which the chocolate and cocoa of commerce are derived, has become one of the standard agricultural industries of the world, and one which for the future gives great promise, since the demand for the cacao beans is increasing rapidly, as is also the market price.

The Central American republics bordering on the Caribbean, as well as the northern coast of Colombia and Venezuela, are the greatest producers of cacao, while Trinidad, Cuba and other islands of the West Indies, produce considerable amounts.

The culture of cacao, like that of coffee and citrus fruits, is a healthful and profitable employment, and especially agreeable for those fond of life in the open, and who enjoy living in the mountains and valleys that slope toward the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Its cultivation may be carried on where conditions are favorable, in company with coffee, since while the latter is grown on the fertile foothills and mountain sides, cacao is at its best in the sheltered valleys of the forest. Cacao demands a rich, deep, moist soil, well drained, since the roots of the tree will not tolerate standing water, and the subsoil, if not pervious, must lie at least six feet below the surface.

The forest-covered valleys of tropical Cuba, receiving as they do the washings of the hillsides, upon which decayed vegetable matter has accumulated during centuries, furnish ideal locations for cacao. In preparing for the cultivation of the plant, all underbrush is removed, leaving only the tall stately trees, that although giving the required shade will still admit some sunlight to the soil below; otherwise the cacao, reaching up for the light, assumes a tall slender growth, inconvenient in gathering the crop. Trees for commercial purposes should not attain a height of more than 25 or 30 feet, the branches leaving the trunk six or eight feet from the ground. They are planted as a rule from 12 to 15 feet apart, which is equivalent to from 200 to 300 trees per acre.

There are several varieties of the cacao, although that in common use in Cuba is known as the Cacao Criolla, and is not subject to diseases as are some of the other varieties grown in South America. The fruit is an elongated pod of cucumber shape, with a rough corrugated skin, hanging close to the trunk and branches. The side facing the sun carries shades of red and yellow that produce a rather startling color effect when first seen in the forest.

The cacao has two major crops each year. The pods when ripe are removed from the trees with a hooked pruning knife attached to a bamboo pole, and collected into piles, sometimes covered with earth, where they undergo a period of fermentation lasting five or six days. After this the seeds are removed from the pods and carefully dried for the market. In the days of Montezuma such was the value of the cacao seeds or beans that they took the place of money or small change in adjusting purchases, and they are recognized even today among the Indians in representation of values. In the cacao factories, the oil of the bean, which represents 50% of its weight, is extracted and known to the trade as cocoa butter. The residue, known as the cacao nib, is ground and forms the chocolate and cocoa of commerce. Even the hulls are used to make a low grade of cocoa known as “La Miserable.”

The tree comes into bearing the fourth year after planting and attains its maturity in about twelve years, with a life extending over a half a century or more. The yield per tree varies greatly, or from four to twelve pounds annually, with an average, under favorable conditions, or five or six pounds. This extreme range in the productivity of cacao is dependent almost entirely on the fertility of the soil, since the plant is greedy in its demand for nourishment, and it quickly responds to the generous use of fertilizer. In the ordinary sense of the term no cultivation whatever is given to the cacao tree, since it is truly speaking a denizen of the forest, doing better when the soil above its roots is never disturbed, although a mulch of leaves to maintain the moisture is very beneficial. Weeds and brush that may appear are removed with a machete.

The successful culture of cacao requires experience and care, especially during the period of fermentation through which the pods must pass before the removal of the seeds. This latter work is done usually by women and children, hence, as in the case of coffee, cacao in many senses of the word is well adapted to colonies and settlements composed of families who have grouped together and made permanent homes in the mountains and valleys that border on the Caribbean and the Gulf.

Cuba is exporting at the present time, mostly from the province of Oriente, approximately two and a half million pounds of cacao, valued at $15.20 per hundred pounds, or $380,000. The commodity is staple and the demand at good prices constant, while the cacao once prepared for market does not deteriorate or suffer loss if sale is delayed, all of which is to the advantage of the grower.

The north shores of the Province of Pinar del Rio, swept by the northeast trade winds throughout the entire year, furnish in many places conditions most favorable to the culture of cacao and coffee. The same is true of southeastern Santa Clara, of the northern slopes of the Sierra de Cubitas and of the coasts of Oriente from the Bay of Nipe on the north, clear around to Cabo Cruz on the southwest.

Both in nature and in its domestic use, cacao and the vanilla bean have always been more or less closely associated. Both are denizens of the deep forest, and are indigenous to the two Americas from Mexico to Peru. The Aztecs of Anhuac, the Mayas of Central America, and the subjects of the Incas, further south, added the delicate flavor of the vanilla to their chocolate, made from the beans of the caca-huatl, from which the name of cacao was taken. This association of vanilla with chocolate and other confectioneries has continued into modern times.

The so-called vanilla bean is not, as the name would indicate, of the legume family, but is an orchid, climbing the trunks of trees that grow on the rich soils of tropical forests. The vine may be germinated from seed planted in leaf mold at the base of the tree, but where cultivated it is propagated from cuttings and must have the shade of trees in order to thrive, climbing the trunks to a height of 20 to 30 feet, by means of fibrous roots that come from nodes along its length.

The leaves are bright green, long and fleshy; the flowers are white and usually fragrant, having eccentric forms peculiar to the orchid family. The pods, from six to nine inches in length, are cylindrical and some three-eighths of an inch in thickness. The vine begins to bear in the third year from planting and will continue to do so for thirty to forty years with but little care or culture. The pods are gathered before they are fully ripe, dried in the shade and “sweated” or fermented in order to develop and fix the delightful aroma for which they are famous.

It is during this period of fermentation that the bean requires careful watching and expert knowledge in order that the process of sweating may be perfect, since upon this chemical change in the texture of the beans the value of the product really depends. After fermentation the pods are carefully dried, tied in small bundles and made ready for market or export. They will keep indefinitely and the high prices secured for very small bulk renders them an attractive crop to handle.

The vanilla of commerce is not only used to flavor chocolate, sweetmeats and liquors, but also enters into the composition of many perfumes, owing to an aromatic alkaloid that exudes from and crystallizes on the outer coating of the best quality beans. These under normal conditions are worth from $12 to $16 per pound.

Owing perhaps to the lack of experimental initiative, the vanilla bean, although at home in the heavy forests of Cuba, with the exception of a few instances has never attracted the attention of those who are in a position to grow and care for this valuable plant. In conjunction with cacao, coffee, or any industry carried on in the rich forest-covered mountain valleys of the Island, there is no reason why the culture of the vanilla bean should not be made very profitable.

Aside from the removal of the beans from the vine, the only effort required is that of assisting nature in the fertilization of the flowers, which in the forest, of course, is carried on by insects, but for commercial purposes, in order to insure a large crop of beans, it is well to see that each flower is fertilized by shaking a little of the pollen upon the stamens. This is readily done with the use of a light bamboo ladder that may be carried from tree to tree.

Indians from the eastern forests of Mexico, between Vera Cruz and Tampico, would readily come to Cuba to teach the best methods of curing or take charge of the treatment of the beans after picking, and thus insure the success of a very profitable crop, which up to the present has received practically no attention.