34 SPICES 



CHAP. 



tion. The important thing to remember is that the 

 vanilla requires partial, but not too heavy shade, 

 especially in its early stages of growth, and freedom from 

 injury by strong breezes. 



Weeding. Macfarlane is strongly opposed to a 

 clean-weeded plantation. He prefers to have his planta- 

 tion covered with weeds of different sorts. These, he 

 says, act as a mulch for the surface-feeding roots, a very 

 good thing in a dry spell. The deep-rooting varieties 

 of weeds are constantly bringing up nourishment from 

 the deeper layers of the soil, which the roots of the 

 vanilla do not reach. The mulch consisting of decayed 

 leaves and other parts of the weeds is eventually 

 converted into plant food, in the form of humus, the 

 constituents of which can be assimilated by the vanilla. 



There is, indeed, a great deal to be said in favour of 

 leaving the ground covered with a carpet of herbaceous 

 weeds, instead of spending time and money in eradicat- 

 ing every blade of grass seen on the estate. All planters 

 admit that weeding forms a large item in the expense 

 of maintaining an estate, and where it is useless and 

 perhaps injurious the principle of clean weeding should 

 be abandoned. 



Of course, if there are climbers among the weeds 

 which will strangle the young plants, or strong growing 

 herbs or shrubs which shut out the light from the young 

 plant, or harbour snails or injurious insects, it will be 

 necessary to clear these away, but to spend money in 

 scraping out every tuft of grass or little herbs like 

 Portulaca seems unnecessary extravagance. 



Vanilla in the wild state does not grow on absolutely 

 bare soil. It is a forest plant growing on land covered 

 with thick scrub or low bushes, and to expose its roots 

 to a blazing sun and to the rush of a tropical rain- 

 storm is not treating it in a natural manner. Exposure 

 of the ground in the tropical rain-forest region, near the 

 equator, has also the objection that the violent rain- 

 storms will wash away from bared ground all the humus 

 and surface soil in a comparatively short time, leaving 



