187 



The only cultivation they can possibly receive must come from a 

 little house waste promiscuously thrown from the hut, the browsing of 

 the ever present dogs, asses and ^oats. But under these conditions 

 fruiting is generally abundant. They exhibit somewhat the charac- 

 teristics of the melon tribe. The young plants are exceedingly sensi- 

 tive and tender; under slight adverse conditions they succumb and 

 die. 6 



A place where it never rains but always pours seems best suited to 

 the papaw. My records show the most thrifty trees in spots where it 

 rains nearly every day in the year ; pouring, soaking rains with a 

 fierce, bright sun shining all through the downpour. After the rain 

 come the insects, lizards, centipedes and other creeping things that 

 delve among the roots and climb up the stalk of the papaw and do the 

 real cultivation The plant will not flourish in swampy nor sandy soil, 

 and seems to be at its best in the rich humua of the hillside.^ 



It grows at the edge of the sea with the waves washing the roots, 

 luxuriates in the high mountain plateaus in all of the windward and 

 leeward islands; it flourishes but does not attain to any great height 

 on the bare coral rocks of Yucatan. In parts of Peru it grows proli- 

 fically without much cultivation or care and it is reported that in the 

 Transandine regions it reaches a height of over one hundred feet.^ 



In some localities the plant begins to grow fruit in seven months ; 

 in others eighteen to twenty months from the seed. Usually its life 

 is rather short, two to three years being the maximum fruit-bearing 

 period. (A rare specimen was observed which was eighteen years old, 

 and was iDearing one to two fruits each year.) The fruiting of the 

 papaw is abundant From two to three hundred have been gathered 

 in a season from a wild tree, in size varying from an inch in diameter 



(6) Professor Rusby (" Carica Papaya," Druggists^ Bulletin) has stated that this 

 tree " can be propagated and grown with great readiness; that its vitality is so 

 great that it is with difficulty destroyed until its natural course has been run." 

 Six years' observation has convinced me that it is exceedingly difficult of cultiva- 

 tion, and that the cultivated trees are most easily destroyed by adverse conditions. 



(7) The following is an incomplete analysis of a plot in Jamaica on which were 

 several fine specimens of the papaw : 



Water (in air-dry sample) , « . 



Volatile matter ., * 



6.02 

 20.12 

 32.72 

 10.62 



1.00 

 .52 



Silica 



Lime (as oxide) . 



Magnesia, (oxide) • 



Potash (oxide; 



Sodium, trace 



Magnesia, trace » 



Aluminum (and iron) , • 8.64 



Carbonates (C0)2 ., . . 5.81 



Phosphoric acid v" • . 10.20 



Sulphates, trace 



(8) In Venezuela thrifty specimens are cultivated in the sandy soil of the 

 ravines. There is here, however, a rainfall averaging one metre per annum and 

 the climate is veiy equable. 



