Title: Cacao Tree in Fruit - Trinidad.
Artist: The Philadelphia Museum
Silver gelatin photograph, 1910s.
Image size 9 1/2 x 12" (241 x 304 mm).

The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao, Sterculiaceae) is a native of northwestern South America. It is cultivated as far south as Peru on the west coast, and as far as Bahia, Brazil, on the east coast and north through Mexico and the West Indies. It is grown also in Ceylon, Mauritius, and other islands of the Ocean, Java and other parts of the East Indies, Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. The rather small tree; seldom reaching more than twenty feet in height, is often grown in the protecting shade of larger trees. Leaves, flowers and fruits are borne at all seasons of the year. In the West Indies there are two principal harvests, one in June and a more abundant one in December. The fruits are borne on the trunk of the tree and on the larger branches and when ripe are six to ten inches in length, of a yellowish or purplish color. Each contains fifty to seventy-five seeds or cacao beans enclosed in a pinkish-white, edible pulp. This photograph, taken in the island of Trinidad, shows the trunks and large branches of two cacao trees. The fruits show plainly, their short stems growing out directly from the branches and the trunk, some of them even down near the root of the tree. The laborer and the child seen in the picture are cooties from India. Many thousands of these people come from India to Trinidad and Jamaica to work on the plantations. They are generally brought over, under contract for a term of years and at the expiration of their time, most of them return home. The man has in his hand a machete. These large knives are very common tools in most hot countries. . Laborers in the West Indies use them for cutting sugar Cane and bananas, for cutting down weeds and sometimes even for chopping off small trees. When the Spanish, under Cortez, conquered Mexico they found the Aztecs using cacao beans to make a beverage called which, with its delightful flavor and aroma and its remarkable stimulating and nourishing qualities, came at once into high favor among the invaders. It was introduced into Spain by Cortez and with about a hundred years came into general favor in Europe. Tea and coffee were not introduced in Europe until later. The Aztecs valued the beans so highly that the emperor Montezuma had an immense store- house for them, and they were commonly used as one form of money. This custom still prevails among certain Indian tribes in the interior of Guatemala, where cacao beans are common currency. The scientific name of the tree, Theobroma, means "Food for the gods." In popular and commercial language, it is necessary to be careful, for fear of confusing several articles the names of which are similar. Cacao beans, the seeds of the cacao tree, are very generally known as cocoa beans, and the tree is called the cacao tree. Cocoa and chocolate are prepared from these seeds. The familiar cocoanut is the product of an entirely different tree (the cocoanut palm), and coca or cocaine is extracted from coca leaves which are obtained from still another tree.

Condition: Very good condtion, some minor surface staining on back of photo board.