Cultivation of the Orange and Lemon. 117 



and to raise plants from seed of good kinds for planting 

 out, about the same time would be required, and they 

 take longer to fruit. (See Appendix, No. 42.) 



I have layered the Malta orange, the Seville orange, 

 the kaghzi lime, and the Malta lemon. The latter, 

 however, is the one which roots with the greatest 

 rapidity. I have raised hundreds by layering it in 

 pots. (See Appendix, No. 42.) I have seen branches of 

 the Malta lemon that simply touched the ground, root 

 at the point of contact and fix themselves to the 

 ground ; and I have seen the kaghzi nimboo 

 flower the second year after the layers were planted 

 out, although there is no advantage in trees either 

 flowering or fruiting when they are so young. All 

 the vigor, however, and all the early fruiting will much 

 depend on the amount and quality of nutriment given 

 to the plants at starting, irrespective of the way they 

 have been raised. In the Etawah Jail Garden, in 

 1882, I found some seedling kaghzi limes. They 

 told me they were about a year old. I planted them 

 out in big holes, 13 feet apart, filled with demolition 

 lime pounded fine, ashes, and -manure, and watered 

 them regularly. I gave them only 13 feet between 

 the plants, thinking they would not make rapid pro- 

 gress. Now, four years after planting, they are 1 3 feet 

 high and their branches have met, so that the plot has 

 become a thicket. Almost all are bearing fruit. Every 

 year, in the hot weather, the soil round them gets 

 several dressings of dry leaves, so as to economize 

 water ; these leaves in the rains, together with the 

 fallen leaves of the trees themselves, form a superficial 

 layer of nourishing leaf-mould. 



With regard to cuttings, I found that those of the 

 Malta lemon will strike readily in the rains, in the 

 shade, and I had several of them thus raised planted 



