1 21 I 

 642.-PROGRESS OP SEEDLING CANE CULTIVATION. 



The growth and progress made in the cultivation of seedling 

 canes, is somewhat remarkable. There is no longer any doubt as to 

 their value, and thousands of acres are being planted in all sugar 

 growing countries. Demerara is believed to lead in number and 

 extent of the acreage planted. Trinidad is not altogether behind, one 

 planter informing me (September) "I have over 2.500 acres of seedling 

 canes for coming crop/' This is encouraging, and the confidence inspired 

 will render it much less difficult to get selected canes tried on estates 

 than hitherto. Wanting Departmental arrangements for the purpose ; 

 this has hitherto been one of the chief difficulties in Trinidad. 



643.-ON THE BUDDING OF NUTMEGS. 



Lsr countries where the science of agriculture is most advanced, 

 no practical fruit grower would plant out seedling trees, except, 

 perhaps, with the ulterior intention of budding or grafting upon 

 them ; this is due to his knowledge of the fact that the seedlings 

 have an inherent propensity to vary, and in addition to this is the 

 possibility of the seed having been cross-fertilized with an inferior, 

 or perhaps, wild variety ; and further, a seedling takes much longer 

 to produce its first crop than a grafted or budded tree. Now the 

 nutmeg seedling has still another disadvantage : it not only takes 

 some seven or ten years to yield its first crop, and may bear inferior 

 nuts then, but there are ten chances to five that it will not bear at 

 all ! After years of weary waiting fifty per cent, of the trees in a 

 plantation of seedling trees may prove to be male or non-bearing trees. 



The seedling nutmeg then is simply surrounded with uncertainty ; 

 and it is with a view to doing away with this uncertainty that 

 experiments in budding have, been conducted at Hope. 



Several years ago grafting by approach was successfully carried 

 out, but this method could not be taken up commercially on account 

 of the scions continuing to grow in a somewhat horizontal direction 

 in much the same way as they would have done had they been 

 allowed to remain on, and as part of the old tree, instead of growing 

 upright as a seedling does ; they failed to grow into profitable trees.f 



It then became evident that some means must be found for 

 utilizing the central stem of the tree as scion wood, since it and its 

 buds alway grow in a vertical direction ; some trees were accordingly 

 cut down to within 3 ft. of the ground and encouraged to sprout, 

 and in a short time each had tour or five stems growing vertically 

 and producing horizontal (primary) branches in whorls of five up 

 their entire length in just the same way as a coffee tree does when it 

 is Stumped down, though in this instance two primaries are produced 

 at each node; each stem would have made a complete tree, and since 

 they were buds on the main stem it was reasonable to suppose that 

 the. buds on the st< sms would grow into complete trees too. The 

 method employed was that described in the articles on the budding 

 of Mangoes and Cocoa. the only difference being that the whole of 

 the bud is to be covered with waxed tape, that greater care is 



*Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture, Jamaica, Nov. 1903, pp. 253-257. 

 tWe do not follow the opinion of the writer in this respect. (Ed.) 



