VI 



THE CULTIVATION OF COCOA 139 



pruning as trees obtained by marcotting, otherwise 

 irregular, bushy trees are obtained. Another drawback 

 of the system is the skill and care necessary to get the 

 plants grafted. As already pointed out, a slow-growing, 

 hard-wooded plant like cocoa always presents more 

 difficulty in grafting than quick-growing trees with soft 

 wood. Still the experiments carried out in Dominica 

 and elsewhere have shown that grafting of the cocoa 

 plant by approach may no longer be regarded as a very 

 difficult operation, which succeeds only in a small number 

 of cases. 



The method is still so recent that no data are as yet 

 available as to several important points : in particular, 

 the question of the productiveness of grafted trees is 

 still quite uncertain. It would not be at all surpris- 

 ing if grafted cocoa trees prove to be much behind 

 seedlings in this respect, for with other kinds of trees 

 (orange, mango, coffee, etc.) it is a well-known fact 

 that grafted or budded trees never develop to such 

 an extent as seedlings, and that their productiveness is 

 inferior. 



(b) Budding. The experiments of Mr. Heyl at 

 Buitenzorg l and Mr. Harris in Jamaica 2 have proved 

 that budding is an excellent method of propagating the 

 cocoa plant. 



As it is generally performed, the operation of budding 

 consists in removing a small piece of bark from a 

 branch of the selected tree, making a _L-shaped incision 

 in the bark of the stock-plant, and pushing a piece of 

 bark of the selected tree into this _L-shaped incision and 

 under the bark of the stock-plant. This method, though 

 it gives excellent results with many other trees (it is, 

 for instance, widely applied to citrus trees), is not suit- 

 able for the cocoa plant. In Mr. Heyl's experiments 

 at Buitenzorg only 7 to 8 per cent of such buddings 

 succeeded. 



1 Heyl, " Eenige opmerkingen," etc. (Teysmannia (1905), p. 411). 



2 Harris, " On the Budding of Cacao " (Bull, of the Dept. of Agriculture of 

 Jamaica, Nov. 1903). See also: Casse, "Cacao in Haiti" (Tropical L-ife, vi. 

 1910), p. 138. 



