82 



(7) irrigating, whenever possible, by using waste water, &c., 



during the same months that the mulch is used. 



(8) thinning out the fruit by one half when they are about 



the size of marbles. 

 5. I believe that these cultural operations would have a decided 

 effect in bringing in earlier fruit, and would be well worth the 

 expense. 



I have, etc., 



W. Fawcett, Director. 

 The Hon. The Colonial Secretary. 



The following letter on the same subject is reprinted from the 

 "Gleaner" of the I2th February. 



The Director of Public Gardens and Plantations to the Editor of the 



" Gleaner." 



Hope Gardens, 9th February, 1906. 

 Sir, 



Mr. T. H. Sharp's letter on producing early fruit in the orange 

 is interesting and suggestive. 



His statement that '" the trees have two energies : the energy of 

 reproduction and the energy of growth" is correct, and the theory 

 and its practical applications have been treated at some length in 

 the Bulletin for February, 1904, in which it is shown that "a de- 

 crease in nutrition during the period of growth favours the develop- 

 ment of the reproductive parts while abridging the vegetative parts." 



The consideration of this fact in the economy of plant life was 

 not omitted in the letter to the Colonial Secretary, but the method 

 suggested is that used by nature herself, checking or preventing 

 nutrition, rather than injuring and half-killing the tree, as Mr. 

 Sharp proposes, by " smashing the outer bark as well as the cam- 

 bium" of the trunk near the ground by blows from a mallet. 



Under natural conditions plants undergo a decrease of nutrition 

 from various causes : two of these causes, — drought, and in some 

 plants, the fall of the leaf, e.g., in our " common cedar," are readily 

 recognized by every one as natural checks to growth. 



The fall of the leaf prevents the chemical union of the mineral 

 constituents taken up by the roots with the carbon extracted from 

 the carbonic acid of the air, — which chemical change takes place 

 in the leaf, forming the food of the living organism. 



The check by drought to the absorption of food materials by 

 the roots is much more serious, if it is thorough, and if it lasts 

 long enough. 



In treating the orange we cannot cut off its leaves, but we can 

 interfere with the action of its roots. We cannot prevent rain 

 falling, but we can do something to prevent absorption by the 

 roots, and so imitate drought. 



