297 



borious work, the removal of stumps and stones alone being very diffi- 

 cult, but the planting of the ground with any future crop will be much 

 easier. 



Oranges. — The b added orange plants by the glass house have borne 

 fruit this year which was exhibited at the Agricultural Show. Several 

 thousands of bitter oranges and lemons have been planted out prepara- 

 tory to budding them. 



Papaws. — The small plantation of Papaws was very successful, and 

 ten acres more have been planted. It was found that the planting of 

 Corn among the young papaws was very helpful to them and the whole 

 ten acres were planted with corn. There was a very large preponder- 

 ance of male trees — in some parts of the plantation as many as nine 

 trees out of twelve in a single row turning out to be male trees. 



The best method of planting Papaws is to raise the young plants in 

 beds and as soon as they are three inches high, transplant into bamboo 

 joints, in which they can be kept until they are nine inches high, when 

 they must be transplanted to the open ground. In dry districts like 

 Hope they will require abundant watering, irrigation twice or thrice a 

 week being absolutely necessary. In wet places no doubt they can be 

 grown with little or no water. I tried sowing seeds at stake and also 

 transplanting directly from the beds to the field. Neither plan is so o-ood 

 or so economical as the one mentioned above. Papaws require good rich 

 deep soil well cultivated ; even then many of the plants, just as they 

 should commence to bear, suddenly fail, the plant ceases to grow, the 

 youngest leaves turn yellow and fall off. The plant is a very unsatis- 

 factory one to attempt to grow on a large scale in dry districts like Hope. 



Sisal Hemp and Ramie. — With these there is nothing further to re- 

 port, except perhaps to remark thatthe former is polling very rapidly. 

 The raising of Ramie from seeds is a tolerably easy matter. The seeds 

 being very minute requires protection from heavy rains. The young 

 plants are also very easily damaged by heavy rains, but after thev reach 

 a height of three or four inches they are very hard}'. The Ramie plants 

 at Hope produce seeds very freely. It is however not recommended 

 to plant seedlings but rooted cuttings taken from the base of the growth 

 at a depth of about two or four inches balow the ground. These are 

 planted just below the surface ef the soil, and the soil being good and the 

 weather favourable, they will grow to a height of two or three feet in 

 less than two months. The easiest and most successful plan of planting 

 Ramie has been found to be to form beds four to five feet wide with 

 intervals between of about 15 to 18 inches, then put the cuttino-s in 

 about 9 inches apart. Labourers can then pass along the intervals and 

 weed the beds without tramping down the soil in which the Ramie is 

 planted— a very important point, as the young plants do not thrive 

 nearly so well in tight soil. 



Miscellaneous. — The correspondence at Hope still continues to be 

 very heavy, 3,267 letters have been received during 1895, and 2,868 

 despatched. 



A new stable is badly required for the mule3, as we have three times 

 as many mules as stalls. 



Part of the old house needs repairs. A new seed house, as men- 

 tioned in my last report, is badly needed. 



Roads, Fences. — The road from the front gate to the Superinten- 



