VANILLA 47 



reason they do not visit the flowers, or if they do so, 

 fail to fertilise them, and there seems to be scarcely a 

 case recorded of natural fertilisation of the plant under 

 cultivation. It is, therefore, necessary to fertilise the 

 flowers of the plant by hand in order to procure fruit. 

 This, though a matter of some delicacy and skill, is by 

 no means a difficult operation, and can be easily carried 

 out by natives with a little training. 



HAND FERTILISATION 



Vanilla planifolia flowers but once a year, usually 

 from September to November, but often beginning as 

 early as June and July. Occasionally it flowers in 

 March, but this appears to be generally considered as an 

 indication of an unhealthy state of the vine. 



V. pompona, according to Macfarlane, gives in Tahiti 

 two crops of flowers, with occasionally a few flowers at 

 other seasons. The main season begins about the middle 

 of July, and lasts till September. The second usually 

 begins early in the year, in January, running through 

 February into March. He suggests that both kinds of 

 vanilla should be cultivated on the estate, as they flower 

 at different times, and so the estate can be kept working 

 most of the year with one or the other kind. 



V. pompona is not as strong a grower as V. plani- 

 folia. Indeed, in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, where 

 the two plants were grown on one tree, planifolia after 

 a few years smothered the pompona and killed it out. 

 Neither are the pods of pompona very highly valued, 

 so that in most places it dropped out of cultivation. 

 Still for the reason given above it might be successfully 

 grown, and add to the profits of the estate. 



A good strong vanilla plant in full vigour should 

 produce as many as 200 bunches or racemes of flowers 

 at a time. Each raceme carries from 15 to 20 flowers, 

 or even more. Mr. Hart of Trinidad gives as many as 

 30 to 40 flowers to a raceme. Thus under good condi- 

 tions a plant can give 4000 flowers. 



