São Tomé e Principe - Agriculture
The principal products of the islands were cocoa, coffee, cinchona bark: (yielding quinine), a highly variable quantity of oil-seeds and oil, and some minor products of little importance, such as sugar, caoutchouc, and kola. Estimates as to the proportion of the islands under cultivation varied for lack of a proper surve. It is stated in a German source that of the 825 square kilometres of surface in San Thome, about 525 were cultivated, and in Principe 98 square kilometres out of 114, but it seems doubtful whether more than half the cultivated surface was efficiently worked. On both islands three zones of cultivation may be distinguished, corresponding to the climatic conditions. The coast zone, up to 400 meters above sea-level, with a mean annual temperature of 82-86° F. (28-30° C.), was predominantly theregion for cocoa; the middle zone, up to 800 meters, with an average temperature of 72-82° F.(22-28° C.), was characterized by the production of coffee ; while in the upper zone, which rises to 2,000 metres and had an average temperature of 64-72° F. (18-22° C.), cinchona was grown.
Cocoa was the staple product of the islands, and gave them their exceptional value among the Portuguese colonies. Of the 225,500 metric tons of cocoa produced by the whole world in 1913 8an Thome and Principe accounted f or over one-sixth. The trade division of San Thome cocoa was into three classes. The best was Firio, comprising the largest seeds, well fermented, of a dull red color. These formed four-fifths of the crop of a good estate, and fetched at Lisbon in 1917 an average price of 6.75 escudos for the arroba of 15 kg. Paiol consists of the smaller seeds, well fermented, or larger seeds with some slight blemish. The average price at Lisbon in 1917 for the arroba of 15 kg was 6.10 escudos. The lowest class, Escolha, consists of badly fermented seeds, windfalls nibbled by rats, or blackened seeds found in withered pods. Its average price at Lisbon in 1917 was 5.10 escudos for the arroba of 15 kg.
The cocoa-plant will not bear fruit in paying quantities above 700 metres, and on the littoral it is peculiarly sensitive to sea-air and to high winds. Hence its most suitable elevation was from 150 to 400 metres. The plants required constant care up to their tenth year. Both islands had two cocoa harvests annually, the first known as that of St.John (March-April crop), the second the Christmas harvest (crop of October-November). The latter was the more important, and furnished about two-thirds of the year's output. The cocoa-plant had been remarkably free from insect pests.
San Thome coffee was recognized to be of excellent quality, and the Portuguese market absorbed the entire output. In Principe coffee had never been a commercial success. Coffee was planted at the higher levels simply because it paied better to grow cocoa on the lower. Coffee also would do better at a lower elevation. Coffea liberica in particular languished above 500 meters, and above 700 meters ceased to bear. Coffea arabica had a wider range, but between 1,200 and 1,400 meters it became a woody tree, and its crop ceased to be worth gathering. The processes of coffee cultivation were similar to those in vogue in the British tropical colonies, with some local modifications. The industry attained its greatest prosperity about 1870, when it was first recognized that, though the prices obtained for cocoa were inferior to those for coffee, the former cost less to cultivate and prepare for market, and consequently gave a better return, acre for acre. Since then, the area under coffee remained stationary, if indeed it had not shown a tendcncy to shrink.
The oca ( Eriodendron anfractuosum), a tree attaining gigantic proportions, is found all over the islands. From its seed-capsules is obtained kapok or silk-cotton, an article of considerable commercial importance. Oil-bearing palms appeared to be increasing in the islands, to judge from export returns both of raw materials and of the oil extracted from these on the spot. But no systematic cultivation was recorded. The African oil-palm ( Elaeis guineen,sis) is indigenous. The coco-nut palm ( Cocos nucifera) had been acclimatized, and throughout the coast-belt of both islands were large tracts of land which might support coconut groves as in Ceylon, the Maldives, or the islands of the Mergui archipelago, where conditions of soil and climate were somewhat similar. A confusion between the coco-nut palm and the oil-palm is apt to arise from the fact that the word coconote in Portuguese is applicd not to the fruit of the Cocos nucifera but to that of the Elaeis guineensis.
Several estate owners experimented liberally in the cultivation of rubber, but with results none too encouraging. The Manihott glaziovii (the Ceara rubber-tree) was the first to be introduced, and overran the islands like a weed. During the first two or three years of its growth it yielded a copious latex, very poor in caoutchouc, but afterwards it seemed to dry up, and was of no use except as firewood. Oastilloa elastica and Hevea brasiliensis had both been tried, and grew vigorously, but the returns from these have also been disappointing. This may have been due to imperfect acclimatization, but more probably was owing to the fact that the African cultivator is less methodical than the Indian and Chinese coolies who worked on the Ceylon and Malaya plantations. Moreover, the Portuguese estate owner, who had not had the opportunity of seeing for himself the concrete results of rubber-cultivation as practised in the East, was apt to devote all his energies to cocoa-growing, which he really understood, rather than to an industry with which he was unfamiliar.
Sorghurn saccharinum grew throughout the coffee belt, but sugar-cane was cultivated only at a lower level in the southern and central portions of San Thome, though it was reported to be doing well in the northern zone at a height of 680 meters. One very promising experiment was tried in San Thome in the years immediately preceding the Great War, namely, the preserving of the banana, either in the form of a fig, or as meal, by drying it in the mechanical cocoa-drier used on most of the estates. In 1909-13 the preserved banana was an article of fairly general local consumption. The preserved banana found its way to Lisbon and was duly appreciated there. An attempt to bring it to notice in England failed, through the difficulty of placing a new and untried article on the British market except at a cost beyond the means of those interested in its production. The banana grew very freely in the islands, and its cultivation could easily be extended.
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