Vol. XII. No. 281. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



37 



The third passage to which attention may be drawn 

 appears in a paper by }l. C Henrick.sen, entitled Rrief Notes 

 on Recent Observations in Cacao Plantations, on page 433 of 

 the December issue of the publication just mentioned: — 



Mr. Jones's further results will be awaited with interest. 

 It may be that the difficulties entailed through dealing with 

 plants in bamboo pots will be made to disa[)pear by the per- 

 formance of the operation of budding on plants in beds, com- 

 bined with the application of 

 a successful method of trans- 

 l)lanting the cacao from such 

 beds. In any case, it is hard 

 to gauge the great extent of 

 the important economic effect 

 that should arise from such 

 work. It should enable cacao 

 at last to be produced in stand- 

 ard qualities from large areas; 

 so that the general level of 

 the price vpill not be chiefly 

 determined by the value of the 

 product from the countries 

 producing most of it, but cacao 

 having the same 'mark' will 

 be able to be grown on one 

 large estate or group of estates 

 ar.d sold at a price determined 

 almost solely by the reputa- 

 tion of that mark in the 

 market. 



Fig. 1. Rui'DED (' a( ao, Six Weeks after Budding. 



'(3) In line with Dr. Fredholm'.s [liiper on renewal of 

 plantations I would suggest that 

 the cacao committee should try 

 to induce the Department of Agri- 

 culture to secure a good propaga- 

 tor who should devote his whole 

 time and attention to cacao pro- 

 pagation The method of inarch- 

 ing is but a makeshift and it 

 ought to be replaced bj' budding 

 and grafting at an early date.' 



It will be seen from the 

 illustrations, which show budded 

 cacao six weeks after budding 

 (Fig. 1) and budded cacao after 

 removal of the upper part of tlie 

 stock (Fig. 2), that the method 

 employed by Mr. Jones was patsh 

 budding, which has proved suc- 

 cessful for the mango (see Af/i-i- 

 cutlin-al N,:,,'^, Vol. VlII, p. 70). 

 In forwarding the photographs to 

 the Commi.ssioner of Agriculture, 

 Mr. .Jones wrote: 'While the 

 experiments show that budding 

 cacao stocks in bamboo pots can 

 be successful, it is by no means 

 e^sy, and much remains to be 

 learned by further observation and experiment. To the 

 jjresent patch budding has proved the more successful 



An investigation describ- 



■_^ I -■ •■: ed recently in the Comptes 



Hindus de VAcademie des 

 ,Scieiices, Paris (1911, p. 1215), 

 appears to support the idea 

 that green plants not only 

 obtain their carbon from the carl on dioxide in the air, but 



Fig. 2. BimrjEi) C.\fAo after Removal of Uppku Part of Stock. 



method Only a small measun- 



attended the experiments with T budding.' 



of 



success lias 



from organic compounds in the soil. The experiments were 

 carried out with plants growing in fairly dense shade, the 

 supply of light being insufficient to form the carbon that was 

 found in them; hence part of this element must have been 

 absorbed by the roots. 



