Fairchild: The Mangosteen 



343 



steens mixed with other fruits. One 

 which is easily accessible lies on the 

 well-known road to the Botanic Gardens, 

 some 2 miles from Raffles Hotel. The 

 land is low and wet and several drainage 

 canals cut it up into large, square 

 blocks. The soil is a clay and evidently 

 saturated with moisture. About each 

 tree is a circular bit of cultivated soil 

 the rest being in grass, and scattered 

 over the bare soil under the trees is a 

 mulch of leaves and coconut husks. 

 I do not know how old the orchard is, 

 but it is presumably about 30 years of 

 age. At this season, January, no sign 

 of a bloom or fruit was to be seen. 

 Dr. Ridley, then director of the Botanic 

 Gardens in Singapore, remarked that 

 though apparently in excellent condition 

 this orchard was not productive. It 

 was his belief that it needed pruning 

 and his experience with a tree in 

 Government House Gardens bears out 

 his belief. He cut out the innermost 

 branches from one of the lot of old 

 mangosteen trees there, which had not 

 borne well for years, and as a conse- 

 quence it produced, the next year, an 

 abundance of fruit. 



His opinion is that the trees should be 

 regularly pruned of all the small inner 

 branches. 



In Ceylon, where the species was 

 introduced from the Straits Settlements 

 about 1800, it is still a rare plant. 

 This is the history of most fruits de- 

 manding certain special conditions in 

 the tropics and, when one is told by 

 those who should know that the natives 

 of one part of Ceylon do not even know 

 what the bread fruit is, although it 

 forms a staple food plant in other 

 sections of the same island, he ceases 

 to wonder that even so remarkable a 

 fruit as the mangosteen should be a 

 rarity a century after its introduction. 



The introduction of the mangosteen 

 into Saigon about a century ago was 

 more successfully done and it is inter- 

 esting to note that the fruit was first 

 brought from Penang by a noted 

 Bishop, Father D'Adran. There are 

 said to be at Lai Thiou, not far from 

 the city of Saigon, what are probably 

 the largest mangosteen orchards in 

 the world, comprising 300 to 400 trees, 



and Dr. Haffner, formerly director of 

 Agriculture of Cochin China, says that 

 in the season the fruit from this orchard 

 is sold for about two dollars gold a 

 thousand, which price cannot be called 

 high when compared with what they 

 bring in Ceylon. 



The popular idea that it is a difficult 

 tree to cultivate has undoubtedly pre- 

 vented many in Ceylon from trying it, 

 and the secret of its successful cultiva- 

 tion seems even yet to be understood 

 by only a few men in the island. To 

 W. H. Wright, of Mirigama, the writer 

 is indebted for full particulars of the 

 culture of the mangosteen, with which 

 Mr. Wright has been one of the most 

 successful of all the men in Ceylon who 

 have attempted to grow the plant. 



SUCCESS IN CEYLON 



His orchard consisted, at the time of 

 my visit in 1902, of 23 trees and was 

 then probably the largest in the colony. 

 It was from 8 to 10 years old, having 

 been planted out with young 2-year-old 

 trees which were sent him as a present 

 from the Malay Peninsula. The selec- 

 tion of a site for his orchard was a very 

 happy one; a moist spot in his coconut 

 plantation, a part of which had at one 

 time been used as a rice field. The 

 ground was so moist that open drains 

 were cut through it to carry off the 

 superfluous water and these are still 

 kept in order. The soil of the squares 

 on which the trees are growing is so 

 moist and soft that, were it not for a 

 layer of coconut husks, one's feet 

 would sink in up to the ankle as he 

 walks across them. The roots, under 

 these circumstances, are bathed con- 

 tinually in fresh, not stagnant, moisture. 

 Mr. Wright attributes his success in 

 growing mangosteens to the fact that 

 he has planted them on soil that never 

 dries out but has, at a few feet from the 

 surface, a continual supply of fresh 

 moisture. The water in his well near 

 by is six feet from the surface of the 

 ground. H. L. Daniel, who has been 

 for fifteen years trying to grow this 

 fruit, and who, during that time, has 

 planted over a hundred young trees, 

 assures me that this is one of the secrets 

 of the culture of this difficult fruit, and 



