The Custard Apple in Queensland. 25 



have clean or sterilised grafting tools and the graft should be well 

 covered to exclude air or foreign matter. Wax containing an antiseptic 

 might be used. 



(c) I find that diseased trees have generally been planted too deep. 

 Instead of staking the trees after planting they are planted deep enough 

 to enable the tree to stand in the wind without staking. The burying of 

 the stem in this way will tend towards softening the bark (the piling of 

 earth or rubbish round the neck of a tree will have a similar tendency) 

 and will almost certainly encourage this disease, and planters should be 

 careful not to plant deeper than the tree was when it was in the nursery, 

 and stakes should be used for support of the young tree. 



(d) At planting time also the bark of the tree may be bruised by 

 careless handling and the disease may begin at such a bruise. 



If the disease is noticed in time the following measures are 

 commendable : - 



(1) The excision of all diseased bark, and if even a small area 

 of healthy bark remains to connect root and branch the 

 tree may often be saved. 



(2) Painting the wound immediately after with an antiseptic 

 or fungicide Stockholm tar or Bordeaux mixture. 



The die-back seems mostly to affect the feeding roots and the 

 following measures may be tried : 



1. Trim off or shorten all weak or decaying branches. 



2. All prunings and dead wood lying about the orchard should 



be burned. 



3. Apply a stimulant, in the form of a top-dressing of good 



stable manure, and if the weather is dry soak the soil 

 with water or weak liquid manure. 



WM. LESLIE, Inspector P.D.A. 

 15th April, 1918. 



VI. Notes on Species and Varieties. 



Seeds* of Custard Apples have been imported into Queensland from 

 time to time, some through the Botanic Gardens, Brisbane, and others 

 through the Queensland Acclimatisation Society, and both trees and 

 seeds have been distributed by each of these centres to growers through- 

 out the State. This stands proved by the existence of trees of a number 

 of species of Anona which have been discovered in the course of recent 

 investigation. 



of the oldest trees in the State used to grow in the grounds 



*It is also likely that plants of several species of Anona would be obtained in 

 wardian cases from the Eoyal Gardens, Kew especially in the period when Walter 

 Hill was Director of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, 1868 to 1880. 



