56 



if plants are to be had, and the season favourable, it is gene- 

 rally considered they are the best. In putting them into the 

 ground, if practicable, they should be removed from the 

 .nursery with balls of earth about their roots; this is even 

 the most economical, as being almost an assurance against 

 failure, and the tree thus planted receives no check, but 

 begins to grow directly. If, on the other hand, the plants 

 are to be brought too far to carry them with balls of earth, 

 extreme care should be taken to place them with the tap root 

 perpendicularly in the soil. Invariably the effect of a tap root 

 not being placed perpendicularly in the hole is, that when 

 the tree is grown to two or three feet in height, the upper 

 shoot and branches take a paler colour to that of the healthy 

 plant, which is of very dark green, the leaves also become 

 small and elongated, and occasionally somewhat mottled with 

 a yellow tinge. Such plants will frequently spring into 

 flower and fruit prematurely, which generally turns out 

 "boll," or empty in husk, and as prematurely dies away. 

 This remark is not uncalled for, as it requires extreme 

 vigilance to prevent the labourers carelessly doubling up 

 the tap as they place the plant in the earth. The hole 

 should be well filled up and the earth trodden in round 

 the plant, which should never be buried below the crown of 

 the root. 



Nurseries of plants are variously made ; much contention 

 has existed on the merits of shade and no shade. Shade is 

 not ; required, and the plants are best without it; yet it 

 happens most nurseries are in some respects subject to shade, 

 as they have to be formed frequently before any portion of 

 the land is opened, and should be protected by a belt of 

 forest from the fire of the clearing; the jungle being cleared 

 oif and carried to the sides of the ground selected. The soil 

 is dug with hoes and picks about two spits deep, and the roots 

 of the jungle carefully taken up, as these would afterwards 



