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give — 3 or 4, or up to 10 or 12 pods, according to length and vigour. 

 Por this they may be planted close together on low bars and posts, and 

 need well-rotted manure for immediate and abundant nourishment. 

 The best time to plant for this is a few days before the first flowers 

 open : if cut earlier many of the flowers will die back. 

 Cropping branches may be allowed to flower for two years if they 

 have not missed a season, but never more than that, as the pods they 

 then give are invariably very inferior : the best are on young wood a 

 year or so old at flowering. 



Prunings, when not too old, may be sent out to rear new plants from. 

 When extending the plantations it is better to plant the shoots from 

 the prunings rather than the prunings themselves, if they are over 2 

 years old. If flung into jungle, especially amoung rough ground, 

 rocks, etc., where there is shade and decayed leaves, they grow in a 

 wonderful way without any attention and yield the best of cuttings. 

 When shoots are checked for cropping branches, some of their tendrils 

 occasionally elongate into aerial roots, and should then be cut off, or 

 they will keep the branch full of sap and hinder its flowering. 



Short varieties of grass seem rather beneficial in a plantation; cum- 

 bersome weeds should be hand pulled, never hoed. 



During early crop gathering, before ripe pods are numerous enough 

 to make it worth while using the hot room, they are cured under blan- 

 kets in the sun, but have to be taken in at the hottest part of the day 

 if sunshine is continuous. This used to be the sole method of cur- 

 ing here, and when used now gives excellent results in favourable 

 weather ; but dependence upon the sun is risky, and upon the whole 

 the process is cumbersome and costly. Hand trays, that can be piled 

 up on top of each other and carried between two men, are used to 

 spread the blankets on, a fold being below as well as above the pods, 

 and these are supported on low double rails to keep them clear of the 

 ground. In unsettled weather showers have to be watched for, and 

 the trays carried under shelter till the weather again beeomes fair. 



If there is a pinch for space in the curing house, pods in the hot room 

 may be spread two or three or more deep on the shelves and tumbled 

 up daily i.e., such of them as are not taken off and re-sorted. 



In mulching vanilla roots, and especially at crop time, the plants are 

 much more benefited if the mulch be of two sorts, well -rotted leaf mould 

 being put on first for immediate action, and above it a layer of withered 

 fern or the like, which decays more slowly. When heavy top dressings 

 of quick-decaying manure, grass, etc. have rotted down, they get beaten 

 away by rain, the network of roots becomes exposed, and may with 

 advantage be lightly coverd with a thin sprinkling of good soil. 

 Obviously it is better to apply this before the roots become bare or vis- 

 ible. The vanilla roots delight in twisting among stones, large and 

 small, and flattening against their lower surface when not embedded in 

 the soil. When these are of a convenient size and handy in a planta- 

 tion, the root circuit allowed to each vine may be ringed with them. 

 Vanilla may be grown on trees of thick foliage if these are of a sort that 

 will stand being well pruned annually. Wild cinnamon, which gives 

 dense shade, is sometimes used for th's purpose, the branches being 

 nearly all cut off each year about pod-ripening time, which also lets the 

 sun get at the vines for flowering. The contrast between former some- 



