44 



branches, which enrich the soil and assist in the retention of 

 moisture. 



CLEAN CULTURE WITH FOREST PROTECTION. 



If, then, the requirements met by close planting be eliminated 

 from the shade question there remains little beyond the fact that 

 in districts in which the dry season is unduly long it may be 

 unwise to shorten the period of growth by cultural methods which 

 increase the daily exposure to too dry an atmosphere, as there can 

 be no doubt that the clearing of large tracts of land will mean 

 warmer and relatively drier air, and that the dryness of the air 

 near the ground will be further increased by the wind, against which 

 the forest will no longer afford protection. It might accordingly 

 be good policy on large estates not to clear continuous tracts for 

 planting, but to leave belts of forest to break the wind and keep 

 the atmosphere moist. This method would be particularly con- 

 venient where the land is to be cleared by burning, since in a 

 tropical forest the trees often grow with their branches interlaced 

 or are bound together by large climbing vines or lianas, so that it 

 is often much easier to clear an entire strip of forest than to leave 

 individual trees standing at anything like regular intervals. 

 METHODS OF HANDLING CASTILLOA SEEDS. 



The thin-skinned seeds of Castilloa, like those of so many other 

 tropical plants, are adapted only for germinating on the most soil 

 of the forest. Instead of having a hardened shell for protection, 

 there has developed only a fleshy pulp, which in nature helps them 

 to remain moist until the rain begins. They are able to resist 

 exposure to even a moderately dry atmosphere for only two or 

 three weeks, and if packed together in any quantity they spoil 

 even more promptly. The perishability of the seeds has been a 

 considerable obstacle in the planting of Castilloa, and especially 

 in its introduction into foreign countries. The first shipment of 

 7,000 seeds secured by the government of British India from 

 Panama in 1875 was a total loss, and the introduction was made 

 by means of a few cuttings, carried around by way of England. 

 Later theKew Botanical Gardens sent rooted cuttings also to Liberia 

 and to the Kamerun River settlements in West Africa, to Zanzibar, 

 Mauritius, Java, and Singapore, as well as to Jamaica and Grenada 

 in the West Indies.* In 1880 the largest of the Ceylon trees was 

 17 inches in circumference a yard from the ground, and in 1 88 1 

 they flowered for the first time. The first flowers were all staminate, 

 but a few seeds were produced in 1882, and these and their 

 successors have furnished the basis of the experiments with 

 Castilloa in the East Indies. The relatively unfavourable results 

 may be due, at least in part, to the fact that the Panama tree is 

 different from that of Mexico and Guatemala, which was sent 

 to the East Indies only in recent years, after better methods of 

 packing the seeds had been learned. 



The preservation of the seeds depends upon their being kept 



* W. Thistleton-Dyei-, Trans. Linnaan Soc, London, 2d ser., 2 : 214, 1885. 



