The best months for planting cacao are the wet months, which in the Cibao are May and October. Small holes are dug in the earth about three yards apart and three beans placed in each. When the sprouts grow into young trees, two of the three should be cut off, and the best developed allowed to remain; but the countrymen generally permit all three to grow, with resulting dwarfed trees and poor crops. To protect the small plants from the hot sun a yuca or cassava plant is set out next to each one. While the trees are growing, corn is planted between the rows and three or even four crops are obtained in each year. After two years the cacao trees begin to bloom, after three years they begin to give fruit, and their production gradually increases until their eighth year when they reach mature growth. Each tree furnishes about two pounds of cacao per year. On the larger plantations less attention is paid to ancillary crops and the cacao plants are raised in seedbeds, the seedlings being transplanted to the field after six months or a year. When the pods containing the cacao beans are ripe the beans are extracted, soaked in water and then dried in the sun. During the crop season cacao beans are spread on mats before every native hut and in the streets of every town and village in the Cibao, and the sourish smell of the drying bean pervades the air.
The principal cacao region is the Cibao and the upper Seibo plain, and the largest plantation, belonging to the well-known Swiss chocolate manufacturer, Suchard, is situated near Sabana la Mar, on the south side of Samana Bay. The cacao here produced is not of the finest grade, such as that grown in Ecuador, but goes to make the cheaper grades of chocolate.
The ease with which cacao is planted and the profits to be derived from it often cause the small farmers to neglect everything else for cacao and purchase articles of food which they could themselves raise. The consequence is that when the cacao crop fails, there is widespread want and discontent.
Cacao has been exported since 1888, before which time it was grown for local consumption only. For years it led the country's exports, until sugar took first place in 1914. The greater portion of the cacao crop is exported through the port of Sanchez, on Samana Bay. Formerly almost the whole crop went to Europe, Havre being the chief market, but of late years the United States has become one of the principal buyers.