Vol. IV. No. 72. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



BUDDING TROPICAL FRUIT TREES. 



The following notes on the budding of mangos, 

 cacao, naseberries, avocado pears, and imtinegs are 

 taken from the Annual Report of the Director of Public 

 Gardens in Jamaica for l!)0.3-4 : — 



MANOOS. 



Several years ago it became ai>iiarL-nt that an eiioniious 

 export trade in mangos niiglit be built up in .Jamaica, if it 

 were iiossible to bud over the thousands of trees bearing 

 crops of inferior fruit on tlie dry southern plains. The tedious 

 method of grafting or inarching had been practised for 

 a considerable time past, resulting in the distribution of 

 a large number of young trees, but it was not until last July 

 that an absolutely reliable method of budding was discovered ; 

 though, iirevious to that, several of the buds put on during 

 the e.xperiments had taken and grown. 



One of the trees budded at Hope is a stump not less 

 than fifty years old ; twenty-five buds were put on in July 

 last, and all grew, each resultant shoot being now Ijetween 

 4 and .5 feet long, with the usual side branches ; if only 

 one had been i>ut on it would have made just as much growth 

 as the whole twenty -five put together. Trees of all sizes were 

 budded, but it was founl tint, as a rule, the larger the trees 

 the more readily and raiiidly the bud grew. 



Without d'oubt the (juickest way to establish a mango 

 orchard would be to transplant the stumps of trees, say, 6-8 

 inches in diameter previously cut down to within 3 feet of 

 the ground ; one was so treUed at Hojie and squeezed into 

 a tub where it lias made, in a month or .so, more growth than 

 a seedling would in two or three years ; the shoots that have 

 sprung out of this stum[) will be budded with several of the 

 best East Indian varieties and reserved for experiments in 

 hybridization. 



CACAO. 



The success achieved in the experiments on the budding 

 of cacao ought to have an enormous intluence on the yield 

 and the quality of the bean. Trees yielding inferior varieties 

 and small returns may be budded with the best variety. It 

 is a remarkable fact that the most valuable variety, the 

 white criollo, has the most delicate roots, whilst the inferior 

 calabacillo has the strongest roots ; I have seen trees of both 

 growing together — the criollo nearly killed by the hurricane 

 shaking the roots and the calabacillo and a few trees of 

 forastero looking as though they had bensfited by it. There 

 is every indication of the criollo proving weak only when o)i 

 its own roots ; and the budding of it upon forastero and 

 calabacillo at Hope has, so far, proved this to be so. 

 Mr. T. J. Harris brought some bud-wood of criollo from 

 AVestmoreland and worked the buds on stocks of forastero 

 and calabacillo that had in-eviously been prepared ; these are 

 growing out in the full sun and, three months after budding, 

 are 3 feet high and are beginning to branch at the top. 



The method employed in budding is so reliable that out 

 of dozens put on by the a^iprentices and Industrial School 

 boys not a single one has failed to grow. 



NASEBEEEIES. 



It is well known that throughout the island there 

 are isolated naseberry trees much prized by the owners on 

 account of the superior quality of their fruit ; these trees are 

 the result of accidental variation and, to a slight extent, 

 natural selection. 



Hitherto it has been impossible to lay out a naseberry 

 orchard owing to the extreme uncertainty as to whether the 

 seedlings will bear fruit of the same quality as the parent, or, 

 in other words, it has been impossible to obtain a large 

 number of young trees of one good variety ; experiments 



liave therefore been conducted in the budding of this 

 valuable tree, resulting in complete success. 



Trees bearing inferior fruit may be cut down and the 

 .shoots that spring from the stem builded with buds from the 

 tree bearing superior fruits in the same way as mangos. 



AVOCADO TEARS. 



The one tree that survived the hurricane, budded two 

 years ago, is now 4 feet high and flowering freely. 

 Though the operation of budding is so very simple, nothing 

 has been done by the country-side in the way of establishing 

 a pear orchard of the one or two good shipping varieties. 

 Nothing would be eisier or more remunerative than the 

 shi[>ment of pears to America. The method employed in 

 budding citrus is the one to be employed in this case. 



NUTMEli.S. 



Several years ago experiments were conducted with 

 a view to bringing the nutmeg plant under .some control ; 

 it has been found that a variable percentage of seedling trees 

 Ijrove, after many years' waiting on the part of the planter, 

 to be male or non-bearing trees, and that the female or 

 Ijearing trees vary very considerably, some producing nuts that 

 require 110 or 120 to weigh a pound, and others yielding 

 nuts thit weigh sixty to the pound ; the latter, of course, 

 being the more valuable. A number of trees were success- 

 fully grafted, but the subse(pient growth of the scions in 

 a somewhat horizontal direction indicated that they would 

 never make good trees ; it afterwards became clear that, if 

 erect trees were to be obtained, the vertical shoots from the 

 main stem must be used as scions. To this end several trees 

 were cut down and others partially ring-barked to make 

 them push out vertical growths, which were afterwards 

 grafted ; though this method was succe.ssful, it proved to be 

 an extremely tedious and unprofitable one. Attention was 

 next turned to the possibility of budding, and the method 

 employed in budding cacao was aiiplied to the nutmeg, with 

 immediate success : it is now possible to get the nutmeg 

 completel}" under control. 



RUBBER IN THE GERMAN COLONIES. 



The following extracts from the Coiifialar Rcpin-t 

 on the trade of the German Colonies in 1902-3 indicate 

 the progress that has been made in the cultivation of 

 rubber-yielding trees : — 



The native [iroduction of this article in German East 

 Africa was 463,04o lb., valued at £.51,331 in 1901, and 

 561,810 lb., valued at £-59,230 in 1902. The exports were 

 worth £59,229 in 1902 and £51,330 in 1901, or an 

 increase in value in 1902 of £7,899 worth. 



In the Canieroons, it is stated that the production of 

 India-rubber is extending, but the methods of collecting are 

 destructive and require to be controlled. The value of the 

 e.xports in 1902 was £69,454, and in 1901 £85,476, or 

 a decrease in 1902 of £16,022. 



The Cjerman East Africa Plantations Company at Lewa 

 continues to extend its i)lantations of rubber trees {Manihot 

 Gkniovii), and at the end of 1902 they had reached 250,000 

 in number. The amount of rubber produced has hitherto 

 been small. 



The value of the exports of India-rubber from Togoland 

 in 1902 were £17,967, and in 1901 £12,963, or an increase 

 in 1902 of £.5,004. 



The general position of the rubber plantations in the 

 Bismarck Archipelago and Kaiser Wilhelmsland on January 1, 

 1903, was 704 acres of Castil/oa elastica planted, on which 

 1,170 trees were yielding rubber, and 425 acres of Fiats 

 elastica, on which 471 trees were yielding rubber. 



