INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, PUSA, EOll 1913-14. 43 



water and food materials from the roots goes on for a time 

 and the stumps bleed. There are no leaves to carry on the 

 transpiration current and the result is that the normal 

 physiological processes in the plant are greatly upset. It 

 is not surprising therefore that the new growth is formed 

 so slowly and that it is often unhealthy. Many plants, 

 such as peaches and flowering creepers like Ipomcea, 

 usually die outright when cut down to the ground during 

 the rains and hardly ever recover. It was decided in 1913 

 to try the effect of pruning the crop in July at the time of 

 the first cut and to compare the behaviour of plants treated 

 in this way with those cut down completely. The crop was 

 grown in lines, two feet apart, to allow of branching. One 

 half of the plot was cut down in the ordinary way, the rest 

 primed so that one branch was left at cutting time. The 

 result was that the pruned plants began to shoot earlier than 

 those which had been cut down and moreover escaped wilt 

 to a much greater extent. The total yield from the pruned 

 plot was about thirty per cent, greater than that of the 

 area cut down completely. Work on this subject is being 

 continued with the object of finding the most economic 

 method of growing the crop so that it can be pruned at the 

 first cut instead of being cut down completely. 



IV. — The Development of the Fruit Industry of 



Baluchistan. 



In the previous annual report, a complete account was 

 given of the work at Quetta relating to the development of 

 the fruit industry in Baluchistan. A brief reference to the 

 progress made during the past year will suffice to bring this 

 subject up to date. 



Fruit and Agricultural Experiment Station. 



Considerable progress has been made in the preliminary 

 work relating to the laying out and equipment of the new 

 Experiment Station at Quetta. The land has been laid out 

 in large terraces with a suitable slope for irrigation in two 

 directions. Water can now be brought on to about three- 



