252 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 



CHAP. 



A suitable 

 cultivation 

 for waste 

 lands. 



A large 

 demand for 

 the best 

 wood. 



Distances. 



Weeding. 

 Pruning. 



Felling. 



The wood. 



Chips. 



carefully during the rainy season, and at once planted in the 

 places where they are to grow. 



Cultivation. — Logwood can scarcely be said to be culti- 

 vated, for most of the blocks are cut from self-sown trees. 

 But, waste lands, unsuitable for other cultivations, may with 

 advantage be planted with logwood, and properly tended 

 trees will always give a finer product than those growing 

 wild. In fact it is stated, in one of the Consular reports 

 from Hayti, that " There is a very good demand, larger in 

 fact than the supply, for the better varieties of logwood." 



Holes are to be prepared, as described in former chapters, 

 at distances of fifteen feet — which will allow about two hun- 

 dred trees to the acre — and the seedlings should be put out 

 when the ground is thoroughly wet ; and, if this be done, but 

 few plants will be lost. An occasional weeding will cause 

 the young trees to grow faster, or cattle may be folded in so 

 as to eat down grass and weeds. All suckers and side shoots 

 should be pruned off, and, whilst the plants are young, 

 some of the lower branches may be sawn off close to the stem 

 so as to produce trees with clean straight trunks which pro- 

 duce the best logs, and give less trouble in removing the sap 

 wood. 



Cutting the Logs. — At about the age of ten years the 

 trees will be ready for felling, which is done by axe-men, 

 who afterwards junk up the trunks into large logs or billets 

 about three feet long. The sap wood, which is light and 

 valueless, is then chipped off, and this is the most trouble- 

 some of all the operations. The heart-wood is very heavy 

 and of a deep brownish-red colour ; and it makes very 

 pretty cabinet work, as it takes a high polish. When the 

 logs arrive at the home markets they are usually cut 

 into chips by powerful machinery, as the dyers are better 

 able to manipulate the wood in this form. In places 

 where logwood is cut on a large scale for export, it would 

 pay much better to manufacture the chips at once and 



