It is always desirable to select a site that is approximately level or with only enough fall to assure easy drainage. Such sites may be planted symmetrically and are susceptible to the easiest and most economical application of the many operations connected with a plantation.

Provided the region is well forested and therefore protected from sea breezes, the plantation may be carried very near to the coast, provided the elevation is sufficient to assure the grove immunity from incursions of tide water, which, however much diluted, will speedily cause the death of the plants.

Excavations should be made during the dry season to determine that water does not stand within 1½ meters of the surface, a more essential condition, however, when planting is made “at stake” than when nursery reared trees are planted.

Hillsides, when not too precipitous, frequently offer admirable shelter and desirable soils, but their use entails a rather more complicated system of drainage, to carry away storm water without land washing, and for the ready conversion of the same into irrigating ditches during the dry season. Further, every operation involved must be performed by hand labor, and in the selection of such a site the planter must be largely influenced by the quantity and cost of available labor.

The unexceptionable shelter, the humidity that prevails, and the inexhaustible supply of humus that is generally found in deep forest ravines frequently lead to their planting to cacao where the slope is even as great as 45°. Such plantations, if done upon a considerable commercial scale, involve engineering problems and the careful terracing of each tree, and, except for a dearth of more suitable locations, is a practice that has little to commend it to the practical grower.