138 



Where ploughing is not the practice, the fork is used to great 

 advantage when the young suckers are two months old. 



Where the rains are constant, and the soil heavy, the cutlass is the 

 best tool in weeding. The hoe and the assam fork and the cultivator 

 are tools used under different conditions. The disc-harrow is an 

 admirable instrument, and should be in constant use so long as the soil 

 is sufficiently diy. If the ordinary plough forms a pan, a subsoil 

 plough is used occasionally to secure good drainage. 



TREATMENT OF SUCKERS. 



Reason for Pruning.- -Pruning away such suckers as are not intended 

 to yield fruit is a most necessary and important operation. It should 

 be done when the sucker is not more than one or two feet high. The 

 larger the sucker grows, the more food-material it abstracts from the 

 parent bulb, and the more its young roots interfere with the root 

 system of the plant— in both ways injuring the future bunch. 



Method. — Care should be taken when cutting away the suckers ta 

 apply the cutlass so that it does not poitt towards the plant otherwise 

 it is very easy to injure it. If the sucker is not cut away quite down 

 to the white, hard part, it will soon spring again, and therefore time 

 and labour are saved by doing it thoroughly at first. 



Choosing and timing.— Suckers shoot from the newly-planted bulb 

 from eyes all round, ar d sometimes from the centre. Some planters cut 

 away the central sucker; others leave it, as it gives a fair bunch if the 

 bulb is vigorous. On the south side, in irrigated land, two or three 

 suckers may be left at equal distances round the bulb. It is well to 

 take those tl at start from eyes placed low down, so that the roots have 

 a good hold on the ground. One sucker takes the lead, as a rule, and 

 becomes the i_lant, fruiting in ten or twelve months; another conies 

 in as a second sucker, giving a finer bunch four or five months later. 

 Occasionally all the suckers will bear at the same time, when the 

 bunches will not be so fine. It is the practice with some planters, on 

 the north side after planting in March and April for fruit in February 

 or March to prune off all suckers till June, then to leave one just 

 coming out of the ground which will fruit in the following April ; in 

 October another is left on the opposite side of the stem, and iu 

 February another which will fiuit in fifteen or sixteen months. On 

 the soutl side two suckers would be left instead of one in June, 

 October and February. 



Plants vary according to sol, situation, tillage, etc., in the time they 

 take to produce fruit, but the usual time is ten months to ^hoor, and 

 two and one-half to four months more to ripen. Ratoons usually bear 

 in fifteen or sixteen months. Judging from experience of his own 

 estate, the placter can by careful pruning so regulate his banana walk 

 when once established that the great proportion of the crop shall come 

 in during the months of high prices, from March to June. 



PRUNING LEAVES. 



As the first leaves decay, they hang down all round, protecting the 

 stem from the full glare of the sun. If they are cut away, the sheaf- 

 ing leaf-stalks on the outside of the stem dry up, and do not perform 

 their proper function. It is well to leave them even in the shade ot 

 a banana walk unless it happens that the plants are clustered closely 

 together, when too much shade causes the stem to lengthen out and 



