294 



preparation should therefore be made before ordering the plants 

 plants should not be ordered in this way except at the commencement 

 of a rainy season, unless it is possible to give water artificially. 



Great attention has been paid to the propagation of plants, with a 

 view to having the plants strong and healthy and packed well on send- 

 ing out. We have been careful also to keep the nursery as tidy as 

 possible, in order to render it attractive, — no e.<sy matter when the 

 character of the labour which we have to employ is considered. The 

 men take very little interest at first, and usually after a short term of 

 service they take none at all, except such as they feel bound to take to 

 prevent reduction of wages by fines. Sometimes for a longer period 

 than usual a man takes an interest in his work and then he may be 

 sent to one of the many applicants for good labourers, who is delight- 

 ed with him for a week or two ; but soon from lack of supervision he 

 loses all interest in his work and then his emplo} T er gets disgusted 

 with him and blames the (xardens for what is really the fault of the raw 

 material. 



The treatment of seeds and seedlings has been carefully looked 

 after, difficulties have been overcome which were hitherto thought to 

 be almost insurmountable in the way of raising large quantities of 

 Eucalyptus, Casuarina, and many other trees, the seeds of which are so 

 liable to be carried away by ants, cockroaches, etc. 



When sown in beds, they can now be successfully dealt with, by im- 

 mersing the seeds in kerosine before sowing them. The kerosine bath 

 does not harm the seeds in the least, and entirely prevents the ravages 

 of insects. Many other methods of preserving the seeds have been 

 tried but with little success, watering the seed beds with Jeyes' fluid, 

 carbolic acid, kerosine and water, but no method was an unqualified 

 success except the immersion of the seeds in kerosine. It is not 

 necessary for the seeds to be in the kerosine any longer than is needed 

 for sufficient kerosine to adhere to the outside of the seed to render it 

 distasteful to the ins.ct attacking it. 



We have also been very successful with the treatment of seedlings, 

 oranges particularly having been grown to fine plants in a very short 

 time. The method adopted with them is as follows : — -When the seeds 

 are to be sown, a bed is dug up thoroughly and the soil made nice and 

 fine on the top ; the seeds are spread evenly over the surface and then 

 covered about half an inch thick with previously prepared soil sifted 

 fine. The beds are never shaded, and never allowed to get dry, and the 

 consequence is that the plants spring up as evenly as possible. They 

 grow very fast, in six weeks from the time of sowing they have put 

 out their first pair of true leaves and are ready to be transplanted into 

 other beds. They are then planted in properly prepared beds, the end 

 of the tap root being cut off at the time of transplanting. This is 

 found to be advantageous in two ways, first by reducing the risk of 

 the labourers' doubling up the long root when replanting the seedling, 

 which would be very detrimental to the young plants, secondly 

 by causing the plant to send out a larger quantity of small fibrous roots 

 and lessening the danger in the second transplanting. Liberian coffee 

 seeds treated in the same way produce good plants in twelve months. 

 The same applies to Casuarinas, and to all the Eucalypti except such as 

 have hairy leaves when young, like E. citriodora, which cannot be 



