Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Near The Equator We Find It From The Plains To The Height
Of 700 Toises Above The Level Of The Sea.) It Is, Like The
Chamaerops Of The Basin Of The Mediterranean, A True Palm-Tree Of
The Coast.
It prefers salt to fresh water; and flourishes less
inland, where the air is not loaded with saline particles, than on
the shore.
When cocoa-trees are planted in Terra Firma, or in the
Missions of the Orinoco, at a distance from the sea, a considerable
quantity of salt, sometimes as much as half a bushel, is thrown
into the hole which receives the nut. Among the plants cultivated
by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain, the mammee-apple, and
alligator-pear (Laurus persea), alone have the property of the
cocoa-tree; that of being watered equally well with fresh and salt
water. This circumstance is favourable to their migrations; and if
the sugarcane of the sea-shore yield a syrup that is a little
brackish, it is believed at the same time to be better fitted for
the distillation of spirit than the juice produced from the canes
in inland situations.
The cocoa-tree, in the other parts of America, is in general
cultivated around farm-houses, and the fruit is eaten; in the gulf
of Cariaco, it forms extensive plantations. In a fertile and moist
ground, the tree begins to bear fruit abundantly in the fourth
year; but in dry soils it bears only at the expiration of ten
years.
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