April i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



743 



engage his men. The Mackay planters consequently set 

 earnestly to work to carry out this experiment of the Pre- 

 mier's, and so issued a pamphlet, which stated plainly and 

 fairly thenatureof theagreement; the term was for two years 

 at a wage of £20 per year, plus rations and passage free, 

 the work that would be required of the immigrant, and the 

 inducements for a man to come to the colony and work 

 for a short time below current rates. A copy of this 

 pamphlet, translated as required, was to be given to every 

 labourer before signing his engagement, so that there could 

 he no possible excuse for him to say he did not know all 

 about the matter after his arrival. Nothing could have 

 been fairer than this course taken by the Mackay Planters 

 Association, and they entered for 1,000 labourers. There 

 was a five hours' debate in the House over this now cele- 

 brated pamphlet, and the result is that the elasticity of 

 our chief statesman's promises is such that he now repudiates 

 the idea of cheap European immigrants,;declines to intro- 

 duce them upon what he calls the planters' terms, when 

 in reality they are his own, and the whole sentence falls 

 to the ground. Although the planters were never sanguine 

 as to the success of these cheap whites, yet as they did 

 their best to fall in with the Premier's views, he might 

 have saved them the insult he has bestowed upon then- 

 good intentions. It is in such ways as this, that as in 

 irritating annoyances, that the present Government is fast 

 helping on the separation movement, and any far-seeing 

 man can see that the epitaph written upon the grave of 

 Samuel Griffith will be, "The Man who Lost North Queens- 

 land." — A ustralasian. 



THE MANGO: ITS PROPAGATION AND IM- 

 PROVEMENT. 



Europeans have never thought of keeping and sowing 

 the infinity of Mango-stones of the best kinds, but have 

 invariably thrown them away as worthless. One might 

 ask how did all these fine kinds of Maugo come into ex- 

 istence ? There is, in my opinion, no other way of ex- 

 plaining the phenomenon than by referring them all back 

 through many ages to the wild kind, the Mangifera indica 

 of botanists. Natives of course account for them much 

 more simply, viz., by God's will. 



The jungle Maugo, bad as it is, is eaten by natives. 

 They throw the seeds about, and in the rains a large 

 number of them germinate. The native has a very tender 

 feeling for any plant that bears fruit, however bad. Iu 

 weeding he never attempts to uproot a Maugo seedling, 

 or any other fruit seedling, even if he found it in the 

 midst of your choicest flower-beds. This feeling, and the 

 ease with which the Mango-seed germinates in the rains ; 

 the turpentiny taste of the leaves; there being in the 

 rains a lot of sweet herbage for the cattle to feed on, so 

 that they would neglect the Mango seedlings; all give this 

 tree a great advantage in its struggle for existence; so 

 that man has been unconsciously sowing Mango seeds since 

 the beginning of time, and thus new varieties in course 

 of generations were created. As new and better varieties 

 came to his notice he of course preferred them to the 

 jungle kind, and went on for ages unconsciously selecting 

 ami sowing new kinds, until he learnt, by means of grafting, 

 to propagate the very kind that most took bis fancy, mid 

 so he mu'tiplied the good kinds. When he wanted timber 

 for his dwellings he naturally cut down the trees thai he 

 liked least— that is, those which produced inferior fruit; 

 and so continued selecting, propagating, and reproducing 

 by seed, until our present day, when we find hundreds of 

 charming varieties of one of the finest fruits in the world. 

 The native name of the .Mango is Am, which means pro- 

 visions. This name shows that from time immemorial the 

 fruit of the Mango has been used by natives as food. Even 

 now, when Mangos are plentiful and cheap, natives almost 

 live on them. For a native to eat fifty at a sitting is 

 no uncommon thing. 



Some time before I left Lucknow I had commenced sow- 

 ing seeds of good kinds of Mangoes with the view of raising 

 new varieties ; and Mr. Ridley, iu his Report for 1870-80, 

 stated that of four seedlings which I had planted, and 

 had been fruiting, one. which I had called Runtra, turned 

 out good and well-flavoured, the other three were not worth 

 keeping. Well, one iu four is twenty-five per cent, and 



that is a very fair percentage for seedling fruit trees to 

 turn out worth keepiug. Some horticulturists would prob- 

 ably be satisfied with one in a thousand if that one 

 turned out a treasure. 



No real progress, however, can he expected iu the creation 

 of new and improved kinds without systematically planting 

 seedlings of good kinds by thousands iu orchards, or what 

 natives call baghs. Then there would be a chance of a 

 number of new and possibly startling varieties turning up. 

 Attempting to produce new varieties by sowing seed on 

 a small scale is likely to prove disappointing. The . Mango 

 seedling takes about seven or eight years to flower, so that, 

 say within ten years, the result would be known. The 

 Mango tree, although it may not produce first-class fruit, 

 is by no means valueless; the fruit, even of the commonest 

 kinds, is saleable, and often, though stringy, is very palat- 

 able. When of a certain age the tree can be sold for timber, 

 which is universally used by natives for all purposes. 



A correspondent of the Bomhay Gazette states that 

 Mango trees over 18 feet iu circumference are not un- 

 common. Considering that the numerous splendid varieties 

 we have could have originated from no other than the wild 

 Mango, there is no good reason for supposing that, starting 

 from the seeds of the present good kinds, provided they 

 are planted in sufficient numbers, still better varieties would 

 be created. It should not, however, be hastily concluded 

 that grand results can be obtained in a few years. It 

 should be remembered that the present kinds, for all we 

 know, may have taken hundreds, nay, thousands of gener- 

 ations, to bring to their present state of perfection, although 

 probably it was all done by a natural and unconscious 

 selection through the fouduess of the natives for this tree, 

 and probably also through its inherent fitness for the struggle 

 of life. If planting good seed, and selection of the best 

 for propagation, be done systematically and scientifically, 

 there is no reason to believe that even one generation 

 might not witness a vast number of additional superb 

 varieties. 



Judging from the multiplicity of aromas of which this 

 fruit is capable, it may probably have a great future before 

 it. The great want is late and early kinds. The Mango 

 generally conies with a rush, and lasts for only a couple 

 of months. Of very early kinds I think there are few ; 

 of late kinds I know only one called Bhadanya, which 

 ripens its fruit towards the end of September, 



Young Mango trees are liable to be killed or badly in- 

 jured by forst. On the morning of January 8, 1874, when 

 the temperature on the grass iu Lucknow was 5° Fahr. 

 below freezing-point, and when fifty Mango trees of the 

 youngest were killed outright, and 325 more or less injured, 

 this very JJhadani/a stood the frost very much better than 

 all the other kinds; so that it is evident there is much 

 room for new kinds, especially hardy, late, and early varieties. 

 In my experiments I found that grafts taken from old trees 

 thrived badly, and many of them died, while of those 

 taken from young trees very few died. For two or three 

 years after the graft is separated from its parent, it requires 

 especial nursing. 



I know of only two animals which are injurious to the 

 Mango tree; one is the larva probably of some kind of 

 beetle, which natives call Macrora. It burrows between 

 the bark and the wood, and if not dug out will eventually 

 kill the tree. The other is an underground rat. In its 

 mining operations if it should come across the main root 

 of a young Mango tree, it does not hesitate to gnaw its 

 way through it, and thus kill the tree. — E. Bonavia, M.D., 

 Etawah. — Gardeners' Chroni.cle. 



THE CULTIVATION OF SUGAR BEET IN ' 

 ENGLAND. 



We call the particular attention of our readers to the 

 subjoined report by Professor Church as to the growth of 

 sugar beet iu 1884, and especially to the fact that pre- 

 vious investigations carried out by him at Cirencester 

 appear to indicate that the percentage of sugar is not 

 entirely a question of summer heat, although there can 

 be no doubt that it is one of the main factors. But what 

 we would specially point out is that, by careful attention 

 to instructions issued by I he proprietors of the sugar 

 factory at Laveuham, a crop may be yrouir in ordinary 



