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to that of a base-ball. The cultivated plants yield from twelve to sixty 

 fruits, weighing from five to twenty pounds each.^ 



It is reported that in Brazil, in the French Colonies in Algiers, and 

 in the Island of Keunion, successful and extensive cultivations have 

 been carried on. In the Island of Montserrat a large acreage under 

 cultivation was some three years ago, destroyed by a tornado . , . The 

 wild plants do not seem to be attacked by disease except after injury, 

 but the cultivated plants seem very susceptible to every sort of malady. 

 Insects attack the tender leaves of the young plants, and they wither. 

 Fungi and bacteria find here a suitable soil. 



After fruiting, and especially if the fruits are bled, the tree will 

 take on a general debility and become the prey of every adverse cir- 

 cumstance. One large field was entirely eradicated by a disease or 

 diseases which the natives attributed to attacks of the " macaca 

 worm/'^'^ In my opinion, the trouble arose from the inherent weak- 

 ness of the cultivated plant in its alterered environment, which ren- 

 dered it susceptible to attacks of beetles and insects of various kinds 



In another series of plantings conducted with still more careful pre- 

 paration of the ground and selection of seeds, coupled with care for the 

 young plants, there was a record of a smiill proportion of plants coming 

 to maturity, and of these only a meagre part bore fruit. None of the 

 plants or their fruits were as large as those of the parent stock. All 

 of these efforts were accompanied by phases which were puzzling and 

 embarrassing. 



The variations in plant life which one sees and hears of in these re- 

 gions are somewhat interesting. It is stated that the shaddock con- 

 tains thirty-two seeds, only two of which will produce shaddocks ; the 

 remaining thirty will yield sweet oranges, bitter oranges, forbidden- 

 fruit, good oranges and bad oranges, and until the trees are in full 

 bearing no one can guess what the harvest will be. The seeds of 

 the mango selected from the finest fruit and cultivated with care, will 

 rarely produce anything approaching the parent stock. In fact no 

 two trees of the mango seem te resemble each other. The papaw is 

 likewise very prone to variation. Seeds selected wi'h extreme care 

 from flourishing trees, the fruit of which would weigh fifteen pounds, 

 upon being plunted would in part follow the parent stock, other por- 

 tions would revert to the wild prototype and yield fruit the size of a 

 hen's egg, 



gThe best method of planting papaw s is to raise the young plants in beds and 

 as soon as they are three inches high transplant them into bamboo joints, in 

 which they can be kept until they are 9 inches high, when they can be trans- 

 planted to the open ground. In dry districts they will require abundant water- 

 ing, irrigation twice or thrice a week being absoluetly necessary. In wet places 

 they can be grown with little or no water. Papaws require good, rich, deep soil, 

 and good cultivation, even then, many of the plants, just as they should com- 

 mence to bear, suddenly fail, the plants cease to grow, the young leaves turn yel- 

 low and fail off. — (Wm. Fawcett, Bulletin Botanical Department, Jamaica.) 



10 The term "macaca worm" in the tropics is applied to the larvae of various 

 beetles which feed upan plants that are undergoing oecay. I supposed that 

 plants already diseased were the only ones affected, and that the ravages of these 

 larvse hastened decay. At the present writing these larvae are reported as doing 

 great injury to the logwood trees. 



