17 



boats and canoes. A yellow or kaki dye is extracted from the 

 wood, bark, and roots (and, Bernay says, also by boiling the 

 sawdust). As an ornamental tree in tropical landscape garden- 

 ing, it is in demand, and in farmyards or their vicinity is a 

 graceful as well as a handsome shade, and if used for no other 

 purpose adds to the too little compost manure heap by its shed 

 leaves and fruits. As a shade for coffee it is popular in some 

 parts, especially in steep land, where the soil is a bad retainer 

 of moisture. . . . Altogether the tree is thought highly of, 

 and considered second only to the " Bread-fruit " in economic value 

 in its native land, where it is one of the few trees left standing 

 and preserved when new scrub land is opened for cultivation. 

 In India several seeds are often sowed together, and the young 

 plants subsequently grafted together into one stem by approach, 

 making a stronger and somewhat quicker growing tree. This 

 is supposed to make the tree come into bearing earlier also, but 

 this is very doubtful. Bernays states that whole fruits are 

 planted for subsequently grafting as above. I have not seen 

 this done, but, if the whole 100 or 200 seeds germinated, the 

 subsequent grafting or inarching mast prove a somewhat com- 

 plicated process. In the same article by Bernays, which is 

 about the best 1 have yet met with on this too little appreciated 

 tree, a method of growing a long stem is described, which I 

 have carried out with some success By this method of culti- 

 vation the seedling jack is made to grow up a hollow bamboo 

 till 2\ to 3 feet high ; then the stem, which is thin and pliable, 

 is twisted round like a corkscrew, more often in one circle on 

 the ground and covered in with earth. This stem grows with 

 the tree, and if bearing on the stem and branches is dis- 

 couraged, will often bear on the buried portion of the stem. 

 This procedure is not invariably successful however It is an 

 experiment easily made, and the root fruit, if obtained, is so 

 vastly superior to others, as to be well worth the time and 

 trouble. . . . The tree requires a soil fairly free from large 

 rocks or bed rocks rather than a loose soil. I have known them 

 thrive amongst boulders, but die out even at ten years of age 

 when sheet rock was met with eight feet below the surface. 

 They do not require rich soil, nor heavy rainfall. Once estab- 

 lished they draw moisture from great depths to the surface, 

 and, while immediately under them the shade may be too dense 

 for gi ass, pasture luxuriates in their immediate vicinity. For 

 a hardwood tree it is quick growing, attaining a height of i 5 to 

 20 feet in four years, and usually coming into bearing about 

 that time. 



Carica Papaya. " Papaw." — 1 have frequently been asked 

 how to distinguish in the young state between the male and 

 female plants of the Papaw, and have been told that the Indian 



