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BANANA SUCKERS. 

 By W. CradwiCK, Travelling Instructor. 



It is of the greatest importance that banana growers should 

 know how long a banana sucker takes to shoot. I find that the 

 small settler in the western end of the island is totally ignorant 

 of the time required by a ratoon sucker and not by any means 

 certain of the time taken by plant suckers, I have been careful 

 to explain that cultivation, natural adaptability of the soil to 

 banana growing, as well as the distances of planting are all im- 

 portant factors in the time which a plant or ratoon sucker will 

 take to bring fruit to the state when it can be cut. I have strongly 

 advised all the planters both large and small with whom I have 

 come in contact to carefully note when a piece is planted and 

 when the fruit is fit to cut, and base the time of planting the next 

 year's crop on the results of these observations. 



With regard to ratoon suckers, I am now advising planters to 

 take 12 to 24 good hard wood pegs and drive them in beside an 

 equal number of ratoon suckers of heights ranging from 6 inches 

 to 2 feet, making the peg the same height in every case as the 

 sucker, record the date of putting in the pegs, and then in 1 906 

 they will be able to see the proper time for leaving suckers for 

 the spring crops. 



People in the west all complain of the poor price paid in the 

 autumn for fruit, and yet have done practically nothing to try to 

 get a larger quantity in during the months when prices always 

 rule high. As far as my observations go, a ratoon sucker under 

 fairly favourable conditions takes about 17 months to mature 

 fruit, but on account of the unsettled weather of the past year, my 

 observations are hardly reliable. 



CASSAVA TRIALS IN 1905. 



By H. H. Cousins, Island Chemist. 



To test the agricultural yield of the various Cassavas now in 

 cultivation in Jamaica, a series of tV acre plots of some 23 native 

 varieties were planted at the Hope Experiment Station in April 

 1904. After 12 months' growth, a portion of each plot was reaped 

 and the tubers sampled for analysis. A second reaping at 15 

 months,' and a third at 1 8 months' growth will be made. As the 

 public were anxious to obtain early information as to the yield of 

 tubers and of starch per acre, it is considered desir:;ble to publish 

 the first results based upon 12 months' growth without waiting for 

 the completion of the trials. The yield per acre is much lower 

 than it should have been owing to a severe attack of red-spider 

 last August which denuded the plants of all foliage so that no 

 growth was made until after the October rains when fresh foliage 

 was developed. These plants really represent 9 months' actual 

 growth, if allowance for the red-spider attack be made, Expe- 



