December i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



445 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 



COFFEE AND ORANGE TREES AND 



CARDAMOMS. 



Munzerabad, 24th Oct. 1883. 



Dear Sik,— At page 229 of Tropical ArjrkuUurist, 

 the following under the heading of " Treatment of 

 Plant.'," "appears :— " The coffee tree resembles the 

 orange tree which suffers materially if its surface 

 rootlets are cut by the hoe."* Excuse an inexperi- 

 enced coffee-planter for asking is this so 1 The custom 

 on this estate, and I may say my neighbours do 

 the same, is to dig round the coffee tree to the 

 depth of six inches or more, and, of course, we must 

 cut awiiy roots and rootlets ; yet, to my uneducated 

 eye, the coffee appears to be flourishing and gives 

 good crops, especially one estate nearly, if not quite, 

 forty years old. 



I would like to remark, that it has beeii found 

 after long experience that the cardamoms in this 

 part of the country do better with any dry leaves 

 that are near at hand placed round the stools and 

 allowed to remain there, until first-picking every year, 

 so that the racemes come stronger and longer, and, 

 consequently, more fruit . is the result. Of course, 

 Ceylon, -with its different climate, probably needs a 

 different way.— I remain, yours faithfully, 



LOONIE. 



CACAO PLANTS AND COCONUT PALMS 

 GROWING TOGETHER. 



Kalugalla, Kegalla, 3rd Nov. 1SS3. 

 Dear Sir, — The garden in which I was shown cacao 

 growing amongst coconuts and bearing well is about half- 

 a-mile from Kegalla, and owned I believe by Mr. Andree, 

 the Minor roads' officer. The appearance of the cacao 

 trees in this g.rd.n would, I am sure, if visited by 

 " A Native Proprietor," convince him of the poss- 

 ibility of growing cacao amongst coconuts, provided 

 of course, as I maintained in my letter, the soil and 

 climate was favour.-ible to its cultivation as evidently 

 in this instance it is. 



Because " A Native Proprietor" has not apparently 

 been very successful in growing cacao amongst his 

 coconuts that is no reason why cacao should not be 

 successfully grown amongst coconuts iu other soils and 

 in other localities. Would "A N.itive Proprietor" 

 be surprized to hear tiiat I have seen coconut trees 

 iu bpnring growing amongst cultivated coffee in the 

 Mat;ile district, and the coffee under them loolsing 

 anything but '" shuck," and yet coffee is a surface 

 whereas cacao is a deep feeder ? 



Fruit-trees which attain a gre-it size, such as jack, 

 mango, etc., planted amongst cnconuts already planted 

 sufficiently close together are along with the coconut- 

 sure to suffer injury from overcrowding ; but this no 

 argument against c .cao (red-fruited variety), which 

 for many years will uot obtain any size, and which 

 can be if necessary kept down by pruuing, growing 

 in localities wiiere it takes kindly to the soil and 

 climate. I do not agree with " A Native Proprietor" 's 

 opinion, that to ensure success fruit-trees (I presume 

 he means when planted as they should be » litre then- 

 is room for them to grow in) should be planted sim- 

 ultaneously with the coconuts, although it would, 

 perhaps be better to do so. 



It would be interesting to know the kind of soil 

 "A Native Proprietor" has planted bis cacao in, the 

 variety of cacao, aud whethe planted quincunxed with 

 his coconuts or closer. 



♦ The statement was not made editorially. — Ed. 

 67 



The Kalutara district, as far as I am aware, is not 

 noted for a free soil of good quality ; on the con- 

 trary, I believe, the sub-soil there is inclined to be 

 hard and gravelly. If this is the casein " A Native 

 Proprietor" 'a property, I am afraid his cacao will not 

 be a succees, although peihaps his coconuts may. 

 Cutting a trench round his cacao plants, aud so close 

 to their stems, would have the effect of draining off 

 moisture, and this may have effected the health of the 

 plants ; or perhaps, the holes in which the cacao were 

 planted were not (prior to planting) dug sufiSciently deep 

 and wide. 



I would not manure the cacaos until after they 

 had threwn out lateral roots (which they scarcely do 

 until they are about two years old), and then not 

 close to their stems. 



There is no need to lay down any hard and fa«t 

 rules as to where cacao will grow and where it will 

 not. All that a person can do, if he thinks he has 

 suitable soil, is to try, uot once, but repeatedly, and 

 not confine his experiments to only one portion of his 

 property. Many persons fail at first from want of 

 experience and from an insufficient knowledge of the re- 

 quirements of cacao plants. All that one requires to 

 begin with nre a few cacao pods and some bamboo pots 

 (split into halves before ueing) or baskets. Plant your 

 plants when well-grown in holes, cut deep and wii'e, 

 quincunxed with the coconuts. It will, I think, be 

 of advantage to fill the holes with a piepared soil 

 just sufficiently rich to encourage the plants to make 

 a good start. 



Slany plants will perhaps have to be sacrificed before 

 success is attained, for, even on estates with virgin 

 soils and favoured with all the conditions necessary 

 for successful cucao culture, this plant has proved very 

 fickle ; and all that one can do is to persevere until he 

 wine success. — Yours faithfully, 



G. W. F. SAXJLIERE. 

 [Of all the cultivated plants we know, cacao seems 

 the most impatient of wind. We saw, recently, a 

 fine, flouiishing tree growing on the leaside of a 

 rock, so as to be protected from the sou'h-west mon- 

 soon winds. It had borne 200 pods. Its congeners in 

 the open had their foliage blown to tatters with every 

 wind-storm and were miserable objects. For cacao to 

 grow amidst coconuts, the latter must be very young 

 or very far apart, and the soil must be exceptionally 

 good. — Ed.] 



FOREIGN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 

 Royal Bot. Gardens, Peradeuiya, 6th Nov. 1883.- 

 Sir, — Apropos of an editorial note in your columns 

 yesterday, it may interest you to know that the 

 Botanic Gardens contain trees both of Firm macro- 

 pkylla, the Moreton Bay fig, a nati\e of New Soutli 

 Wales as well as Queensland, and of F. Benjamina. 

 which gi-ows wild in Assam, Burma, Western Indin 

 and Queensland. I quite agiee with you in your 

 estimate of the highly ornamental character of both 

 these species : the latter is especially desirable, and 

 one large tree of it here is much admired. It is 

 this tig which is known in Jamaica as "the Ceylon 

 willow " ! (mentioned iu Mr. iVlorrii's Report for 

 18S1-2, p, 1(3), as I was able to deteiiaiiie from speci- 

 mens lately sent me from that colony. This, by the 

 way, is a good and instructive example of the use 

 fulness and accuracy usual in " English names " of 

 foreign plants. 



With regard to the Damniara avenue, near Buit- 

 enzorg, this is scarcely likely to have been formed 

 of D. amiralis. The magnificent Kauri pine of Ne-v 

 Zealand could not. I think, flourish in Java at so 

 low an elevation. The trees were more probably the 

 D. aiha {D. oricutalift) of the Malay Archipelago, the 

 source of white Damniara resin ; or the Queensland 



