29 



stocks, and we constantly hear good accounts of their progress, 

 occasionally however, objections are made to grafted plants, 

 and often for absurd reasons ; for instance 1 was asked not, long 

 ago how it was that grafted plants so often I ore sour fruit, 1 

 said that it was the first time that I had heard such a state- 

 ment made, but whs told that in a plantation of grafted trees 

 in the coast district a large proportion of the trees yielded sour 

 fruit, a few days afterwards 1 found the following, extracted 

 from a Bulletin issued by the Botanic Gardens at Trinidad : — 



" Some advance has been mule in the propagation of the 

 " imported kinds of orange duruig the present year, and a fairly 

 "good stock of strong budded plants is now on hand This it is 

 '"trusted will do away with the complaint so frequently heard 

 " of oranges proving sour when raised from seed, a case of which 

 "occurred during the previous week." 



This we can understand as it is far more likely that tree-; 

 reared from seed will bear .sour fruit, than that grafted trees 

 will do so, the fact being that grafted trees will bear similar 

 fruit- to the tree from which the scion was tiken. It is neverth- 

 less a fact that orange trees w r hether grafted or seedlings will, 

 after having yielded good fruit for a longer or shorter time, 

 produce fruit that is sour and almost uneatable, a case of this 

 kind is within my own knowledge, the reason being that the 

 trees had been neglected, and no manure of any kind had been 

 supplied to them for some years. The Ameiican saying 

 about these trees is very true "Feed your trees and they will 

 feed you, starve them and they will starve you." Another 

 absurd id; a has taken possession of the minds of some people, 

 who are quite prepaied to prove their statements by facts 

 (so-called), it is that seeds taken from an orange grown on a, 

 tree that has been grafted on a lemon will pioduce iemons, not 

 oranges, but beyond conti adioiing this statement it is not w r orth 

 while to say more abou 1 it. 



MKDICINAL PLANTS. 



Moschosma riparia. - This plant is well known in the coast and 

 midland districts of the colony, and is figured and described in 

 "Natal Plants " Vol 1, plates 1 & 2. It is singular amongst the 

 Labiatae, the (>rder to which it belongs, from the fact of its 

 being dioecious, that is bearing its staminate and pistillate 

 flowers on separate plants, and as seated in the note in Natal 

 Plants, it is used medicinally by the natives in April last I 

 received a letter from a medical man in England who said : kl I 

 "have been informed that a plant called Moschosma riparia 



