and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— August, 1912. 



175 



more than 30 centimeters (12 in.) tall, the 

 plants may be transplanted to the field from 

 the nursery with safety after they are more 

 than 1.5 meters (59 in., say 5 ft.) high, pro- 

 vided that all except young and tender leaf blades 

 are removed leaving the entire petiole or leaf stalk 

 attached to the plant : if the petiole be cut close 

 to the main stem, decay rapidly enters it. If the 

 entire petiole is leit, it withers and drops and a 

 good leaf scar has formed before the fungi have 

 had time to work their way from the petiole into 

 to stem of the plant. 



Treatment of Old Plants. — When a plant 

 has grown so tall that it is difficult to gather the 

 fruit, which also at this time grows small, cut 

 off the trunk about 75 centimeters (28 4-5 in.) 

 above the ground. A number of buds will then 

 sprout from the stump, and will form several 

 trunks that will bear fruit like the mother plant 

 in a short lime. These sprouts, except two or 

 three, should be cut off, for if all are permitted 

 to grow the fruit produced will be small. 



Seed Selection. — Seed should be saved from 

 the best fruits only. By this is meant not so 

 much a large fruit as one that is sweet and 

 well flavoured, with a small seed cavity and few 

 seeds ; oblong fruits should be preferred to 

 roundish ones in saving seed, as they grow in 

 plants having both stamens and pistils in the 

 same flower; and these being, very largely, 

 self-pollinated, the seeds produced from such 

 flowers are more likely to produce their kind 

 than the seed from roundish, melon-shaped 

 fruits, which mostly grow on female plants. 



All male plants should be destroyed where- 

 ever they appear, as not only are they un- 

 productive but their pollen being carried to 

 the fruiting plants they tend to produce degen- 

 erate plants when these are grown from the 

 seed produced on plants growing in[the vicinity 

 of the male plants. 



There is no need to fear that the other plants 

 will not fruit if the male papayas are destroyed, 

 for the reason that there are always plants 

 about having perfect flowers, and which provide 

 sufficient pollen for the fructification of the 

 female plants. This applies particularly to the 

 Hawaiian papaya. 



General Remarks. — The [papaya is very im- 

 patient of water standing around the roots, 

 and should be planted only on well-drained 

 land ; being easily injured by strong winds, it 

 should be planted in sheltered situations 



Keep the land clean of weeds and the plants 

 well mulched. 



THE CHERIMOYER. 



If it is true that " one good European pear is 

 worth all the cherimoyers of Peru " put to- 

 gether, then it must, by far, be truer that one 

 good cherimoyer is, in its turn, worth every other 

 anona of the West. For, though it is at present 

 neither known nor grown to the extent to which 

 it deserves to be, this 



SWEET, LUSCIOUS, DELICATE- FLESHED 



fruit is pre-eminently the 



KING OF THE CUSTARD-APPLE TRIBE. 



Child of the arid desert though it be, it 

 does not " waste its sweetness to the 

 air" ; for, though economically it is still the 

 least, pomologically, it is the greatest of the 

 group of edible fruits to which it belongs. It 

 is esteemed by the Peruvians as one of their 

 choicest, and enjoys the distinction of being 

 deemed worthy to rank among even the three 

 finest in the world,— the other, more familiar, 

 members of the triad being the Malayan mango- 

 steen and the Brazilian pineapple. And, though 

 it has to be remembered that as a rule the merits 

 or otherwise of a fruit are made to depend very 

 much upon those qualities of it that conform 

 to the personal tastes and predilections of the 

 traveller or promologist who describes it first, 

 nevertheless, it will be conceded in the East, 

 wherever this veritable "sugar-apple" is known, 

 that the West has given it no better fruit. The 

 cherimoyer is but one of half-a-dozen fruits of its 

 kind, which the occidental tropics have bequea- 

 thed to the world ; it is also the latest of all the 

 anonas to reach the gay shores of the flaming 

 East,— a region which, with its varied natural 

 conditions, has hitherto always offered a home 

 so congenial, for the greater part, to the needs 

 of these aliens as to have resulted in doubt it- 

 self being cast upon the claims of the West 

 as their habitat. Like the shady, diffuse- 

 branching bullock's heart tree [Anona reticu- 

 lata), the cherimoyer [Anona Cherimolia) at- 

 tains to a height of 20 feet ; and like its and 

 those of other anonaceous plants, the flower 

 consists of six petals, in two rows, while, the 

 indefinite number of its carpels unite to form 

 a many-celled fleshy fruit. The plant is indi- 

 genous to the mountains of Peru and has been 

 naturalised not only iu the islands of the West, 

 but also throughout the vicinity of its home. 

 It is said to be a lover of open hill-sides, to 

 demand a hard calcareous soil, and to thrive 

 only in climates that are dry. But, though 

 these requirements may be indicated, the cheri- 

 mover can, as a matter of fact, be 



