Cocoa Tree is as important as Coconut tree for Ceylonese.
It has many features and current government should diversify agriculture with special interest on supplementary products.
Cocoa should come under their scrutiny.
We had a lovely, Cocoa Plantation in Palle Kelle, in Kandy. J.R.J. destroyed and developed a Cricket Stadium, there.
I was considering buying a plot there, damn cheap to build a house with a piece of land for home gardening.
I decided against since the calcium deposits were high and Kidney stones in residents were high in this region.
I worked with IMMI and had all the relevant information.
I worked there only 9 months and the second DJP/ JVP insurrection ended my protocol.
I studied this tree from my childhood.
I'll come to that later.
One of my relatives little over 3 years older was a good of friend mine, for a long time.
He had high respect for me since I was good in my studies.
He was the youngest and he was used as a regular servant of the house. I had one of my classmates who was treated similarly by his stepfather. He died a nervous wreck and I could not help him.
I did not know the whole story.
That included climbing coconut trees, ploughing paddy fields, bringing water from the well for drinking, looking after cows, milking and all the odd jobs.
Last of all, he ran a simple village boutique and he was always broke since the customers did not pay back at the end of the month.
While he was doing this his elder sister and elder brothers were enjoying life including going to school.
All of them obtained government and or Cooperative Jobs.
I thought he was not bright but never checked.
Years later, I realized, my guess was not correct .
He was clever enough to claim the possession of the house and the land, for himself.
Much later, I realized all these ill treatments meted out were the guise to evict him, so one of the others could claim the house and the land.
I advised him to sort some help from my father. I am not sure my father did intervene but knowing him, he may have put his two cents.
My close relationship with him and my obvious dislike of his other siblings made it good for him, in the long run.
I told his mother directly that this ill treatment was unwarranted.
I used to share my books and he on his own way did his 'O' Level studies.
He perhaps could not pick up mathematics and science.
Trying to teach seniors is not welcome those days.
He was but well read.
He knows more than enough how our Elephants are treated in the wild and in captivity.
He knows how to make a good kites.
He knows all the Ayurveda plants.
He is a living encyclopedia.
We had an orchid house in our house.
We were booted out of that house and we left never to return to our maternal village.
So we had to give the orchid house we treasured to this guy who was very young, then. Being a born agriculturist he could pick up gardening with ease.
He looked after it for over 50 years but one by one orchids started disappearing, perhaps stealing.
But he kept propagating one orchid with annual flowering.
It was a rare variety, called "Wesak Orchid".
Type of "May Orchid".
We gathered it from a jungle near Galagedara in 1952 where that famous murdered woman ? Leela was hung and was discovered subsequently.
Coming to the orchid, he said he is gradually losing his sight and asked me to propagate this variety for the next few years.
Which I obliged.
I did propagate it for over 25 years but only twice it bloomed.
I had a few saplings when I left Ceylon.
I had no time to dispose them.
The orchids were in good health and all bloomed except this particular orchid.
I knew nobody could look after them well enough.
I never used artificial fertilizer.
No artificial fertilizer was my conviction.
With simple methods I got it right.
Only thing, I added was tea leaves and rarely some ash from plants, I burned.
I had a huge dragon plant which I uprooted due to its roots penetrating the cement cracks.
Vanilla plant, another orchid was there but no flowers.
But I did not give up.
That was the time I was getting interested in rooftop gardening.
Water plants and ornamental fish keeping were other interests.
But NO to orchids (orchids need 40 to 60% shade and lot of humidity), well into retirement.
But I have a lovely collection of books on orchids.
With global warming peaking up gardening is not a hobby for old guy with little hair on top.
Now to the Cocoa Tree
Cocoa tree is the best tree to propagate orchids.
One day on my way back home from Colombo, I found a small rotten cocoa pod with a fruit vendor.
I did purchase huge amount of various bananas from him.
The idea was to get hold of the rotten cocoa.
He obliged and I told him it was for seeds.
I managed to germinate only two out of the many seeds.
I had the habit of collecting seeds and testing how many would germinate out of 10 seeds.
Tomatoes was my favorite testing seed plant.
Seeds included paddy seeds.
The cocoa plants when sturdy enough were re-potted on two big pots.
I looked after them with much care, almost with the interest of Linux.
They needed lot of water.
The secret I discovered accidentally.
The black ants love the roots of this plant.
They make their nests well hidden from above.
Only when I get a nasty sting I know there are many eggs underneath.
The black variety.
I make a little but intentional commotion and they make subsidiary nests helping my rooftop garden plants.
Only a few are soldiers and most of them are docile.
That is my antidote for red tiny ants.
They clean up red ants in 2 days.
The bounty is there are no red ants, if you have a cocoa tree.
Now getting ready to come over to Australia, I neglected the rooftop garden and one of the Cocoa tree died a natural death but the other one I kept going.
During the dry season most of the leaves except two or three fall and only the stem remains (in our rooftop garden) until the rain comes.
That is enough to keep the orchids surviving.
It's bark is perfect for orchids.
So I went to one of my other (relative) elder brothers (the other guy had gone to Trincomalee camp) to find a cocoa pod.
He was planning to go to Canada two weeks after me.
I told him not worth toiling in Ceylon.
The plan was for him to bring me a Cocoa Pod and the additional agenda was to have a good meal at Kandyan Reagency Hotel.
For me it was Hoppers and Hoppers.
This cocoa pod was given to my regular three wheeler driver for him to make few saplings for my rooftop garden.
If I do not come back, to Ceylon, he has to look after, only two cocoa plants.
I am sure would do that.
That is not the end of the Cocoa Story.
1. The piece of chocolate I ate today, had only the taste of chocolates and no real chocolate.
Most of it was bubble gum, almost 99%
2. Chocolates are the most expensive commodity weight for weight.
3. Real chocolate have over 300 micro ingredients.
4. Many of these ingredients have medicinal value.
5. I have been saying this for over 20 years and nobody in Ceylon consider growing cocoa commercially, like it used to be.
6. It is not labour intensive to grow and and harvest.
7. Some countries in Africa are dominating the world market and thereby decide the price of chocolate we eat.
8. I used to go to KANDOS chocolate factory in Palle Kelle, every Christmas.
Chocolates were my standard Christmas gift.
Not any more.
I believe they are importing chocolate powder from Africa (if that factory is NOT taken over by Indian interests and thereby totally destroyed).
