Cultivation of the Orange and Lemon. 137 



decaying, add to the surface soil the ingredients which 

 the tree most requires. If, in addition, you give a 

 careful surface leafage from any other trees every hot 

 weather, you will in some measure imitate the process 

 by which nature conserves its forests. This, however, 

 will not be all that is required, as you will, of course, 

 remove every year the fruit, which has to be provided 

 against by means of manurial ingredients. If you 

 attend to this annually, and stir up the surface soil 

 regularly and frequently, there is no reason why, in 

 good soil, your orchard should not stand for many 

 generations, if you take the precaution to shelter it 

 from the destructive hot winds where those prevail. 



Before I quit this subject, I may as well recom- 

 mend to intending planters two trees which may be 

 useful for hedges. One is the Carissa carandas, 

 the carawnda of natives. It is a thorny, stiff-leaved 

 bush, which in time becomes an impenetrable fence ; 

 moreover it produces an olive shaped berry, which 

 is useful for tarts, and also for chutny. The other 

 is the Cappans scpiaria, hisaree or hains of natives. 

 It is a wild small-leaved plant, with umbels of minute 

 white flowers, and covered with small and large hooked 

 thorns. Once you get entangled in it, every effort to 

 disengage yourself from it will hook you on to fresh 

 thorns. With a little observation, patience and trouble 

 you might so fence in your orchard, as to make your 

 fence equal to a solid wall, as far as thieves and cattle 

 are concerned. Where possible, however, a high wall 

 round your orchard has great advantages. It sucks 

 nothing out of your soil. While your young trees are 

 growing, you can take low crops from the ground 

 between the trees. 



I have found that the agast tree (Sesbania grandi- 

 flora ; akhatti of Ceylon) is very useful for giving 



