133 

 ON THE BUDDING OF NUTMEGS. 



By T. J. Harris, late Agricultural Instructor, Experiment Station, 



Hope Gardens, 



In 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 te:i years to 

 yield its first crop, and may bear infer 'or 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. 



'1 he seedling nutmeg then is simply surrounded with uncertainty ; 

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

 ments 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 dune had they been allowed to re- 

 main on, and as part of the old tree, instead of growing upright as a 

 seedling does ; they failed to grow into profitable trees. 



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 always 

 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 four or five stems growing vertically and producing 

 hor'zontal (primary) branches in whorls of five up their enti e 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 there were buds 

 on the main stem it v\ as reasonable to suppose that the buds on the 

 s:ems 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 required in fitting the bud, and 

 the least possible time should elapse between the cutting out of the 

 bud and fitting it into the stock. 



Within the last ten years nearly three-quarters of a million nutmeg 

 seedlings have been distributed from Hope Gardens, and many will 

 probably soon fiower for the first time; as the male trees "declare" 

 they should be marked for budding upoi later, using as bud-wood the 

 vertical shoots of a female tree that had previously been cut down, se- 

 lecting a tree for this purpose that is known to yield nuts of first 

 quality, 60-80 to the pound. 



It would be well to remember, however, that about four per cent, of 

 the trees in a plantation should be male trees to provide pollen for 



■'Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture, Jamaica, Nov. 1903, pp. 263-257. 



