252 
Bud-wood of the Bahama grape fruit was obtained from the 
Nassau Botanic Station. The carefully-packed shoots, though they 
were over six weeks in transit, were successfully worked on the sour 
orange stocks in Dominica and 26 per cent. of the buds inserted grew. 
Bud-wood has also been imported from Florida and Palestine. 
The result is of considerable importance, as it used to be thought 
impossible to send bud-wood over long distances, and in order to 
introduce a new species or variety it was always considered necessary 
to obtain plants from Europe or America. 
e Dominica experiments have proved that the introduction of 
plants has frequently led to failure, but that by means of bud-wood 
varieties may be introduced, and are now flourishing, which 
formerly had always been a failure. Further, that it is easier and 
cheaper to import bud-wood of standard varieties than to introduce 
budded plants. 
It is of course essential that the nurseries should contain a good 
supply of healthy local stock on which to work the buds immediately 
after their arrival. 
Shade and Mulch for Cacao.—In Kew Bulletin, No. 4, 1912, 
p- 177, reference was made to the cultivation of Cacao on Lord 
Glenconner’s Ortinola Estate, Trinidad, and to the good effects of 
the liberal mulching there practised. 
Numerous trees were being used experimentally for the combined 
purposes of giving partial shade and yielding material for mulch 
such as Erythinas, Albizzias, Pithecolubium saman and Gliricidia 
maculata, One tree which appeared to be particularly useful 
proves to be Cassia grandis, Linn. f., from specimens sent to Kew 
by Mr. W. Bain. 
This tree can easily be climbed owing to its smooth stem, and 
yields a plentiful supply of leafy branches for use as mulch. 
r. Bain, in his letter accompanying the specimens, writes on 
12th May: “We have had an almost continual spell of dry 
weather since you left Trinidad [Feb. 6, 1912], and have had only 
about 21 inches of rain during the past eight months ; we often get 
this rainfall in six or eight weeks. This weather is having a 
disastrous effect on the cocoa estates generally throughout the 
ish e have lost lots of the young fruit on the estate from 
want of sufficient moisture, but the pruning and mulching system 
here helps the trees to resist the effects of dry weather. S. ar we 
erie got few dead trees compared to some plantations in the 
istrict.” 
