260 GAEDEN PLANTS. PART II. 



Sir A. Barnes also mentions a " famous Pomegranate without 

 seeds grown in gardens under the Snowy Hills near the Caubul 



river." 



The finest varieties of this fruit, however, seem to have been 

 quite unknown in India till very recently* Mr. W. H. Bartlett 

 sent to the Agri-Horticultural Society seed of fruits he had 

 raised " from Caubul stock," in his garden at Buxar. One of 

 these fruits he states was of the size of " an ordinary human 

 head ; " and one of " a small Shaddock." He manured and 

 constantly well watered the tree, he adds, till it showed signs of 

 flowering, and afterwards while the fruit was ripening. 



The Pomegranate will always maintain its place in an Indian 

 garden, if it be only for the splendour of its brilliant scarlet 

 blossoms, which no flower can surpass, and which it is producing 

 more or less during all the Hot season and Kains. It bears its 

 fruit principally during the Cold season, which, if not protected 

 in due time, is almost sure of being destroyed. An insect, which 

 I have detected to be a certain hairy caterpillar, penetrates the 

 hard rind when the fruit is a little more than a quarter grown, 

 and by devouring part of the interior causes the remaining part 

 to canker and rot. To obviate this, the fruit, when as yet small, 

 should have the large fleshy calyx by which it is surmounted cut 

 cleanly off, and then be tied up loosely in a piece of linen cloth. 



The native malees recommend a large proportion of soorkee 

 (bricks broken fine), together with old decayed cow-dung, to be 

 mixed with the soil in which the Pomegranate is grown. It is 

 not, however, particular as to soil. It succeeds even in the 

 driest, but it does not thrive in one that is surcharged with wet. 

 To yield fine fruit* it must be manured each year. This is best 

 done perhaps in December. The Pomegranate sends up a great 

 deal of young wood from its base, which should from time to 

 time be cut clean out, as it not only chokes up the plant, but 

 tends to withdraw the nutriment which should go to the fruit- 

 bearing stems. The fruit is produced from the extremities of the 

 young branches formed the same year, which after bearing it is 

 well to cut closely in. 



Plants may be multiplied either by seed, by cuttings, or by 

 layers. The best plan is to raise seedlings, and to graft upon 

 them, when of sufficient height, from trees of a superior kind. 



* Feb. 5, 1874. 



