June, 1910.] 



503 



Edible Products. 



like clothes props, one working the fork 

 up between the vine and the tree, care- 

 fully disengaging the tendrils, and the 

 other catching the loose vine in the 

 fork of his stick and lowering it gently- 

 down. 



Flowering. 

 In the second year a few flowers may 

 be seen, enough to study and practice 

 on, but not enough to count on as a 

 crop. By the third year, however, com- 

 mencing here, early in October, and 

 lasting till the end of November or later, 

 a large proportion of the vines should 

 produce flowers, which they will do by 

 sending out fat, bright green buds in 

 the axils of the leaves here and there, 

 seldom in two consecutive eyes, which 

 will grow only an inch or two in length 

 before bursting into clusters of buds. 

 One cluster to a yard or so of vine is 

 a good flowering. In a few days the 

 first flowers of the cluster will open, 

 and it will continue slowly developing 

 and opeuing blossoms for some times 

 two months or more. This flowering is 

 the most interesting if not the most 

 anxious time for growers. 



Fertilising or Pollinating. 

 The Vanilla blossom while having the 

 male and female organ in the same 

 flower is of such construction that it 

 cannot fertilise itself. The insects that 

 fertilise Vanilla do not exist here, or 

 indeed, in most countries where Vanilla 

 is produced commercially. Even where 

 they do exist — the wild forests of Mexico 

 — the proportion of flowers so fertilised 

 is very small. Each blossom has, there- 

 fore, to be artificially fructified or ferti- 

 lised. Considering that each vine may 

 produce hundreds and a plantation 

 thousands of flowers, and it takes 

 roughly — allowing for failures — some 150 

 or 200 such fertilisations to give 1 lb. 

 of Vanilla beans, the work might ap- 

 pear appallingly great. As a matter 

 of fact, it is very simple and quickly 

 done. So simple is it that children can 

 do it easily and so rapidly that hun- 

 dreds (experiment at Kameruuga has 

 shown about 1,000") can be fertilised in 

 a forenoon. 



While the process is simple, it must 

 be thoroughly understood to be carried 

 out successfully. The best way is to 

 get a flower and pull ic to pieces with 

 this descripiton and the illustrations 

 in front of you. 



The tool necessary is a little piece of 

 stick — bamboo splinter or toothpick — 

 some 3 in. long and & in, wide, and 

 quite thin and flat. A pin hammered 

 out flat at the point and the head-cut off 



stuck into a piece of pencil for a handle 

 makes an excellent fertilising tool. 



When examined this flower will be 

 found to have only one thin petal which 

 has any colour on it (and not much of 

 that); when this is gently torn away 

 it is found to be growing from the 

 sides of and protecting a white or pale- 

 green rigid little column with a knobbed 

 top. This carries the male and female 

 organs, aud any damage to it must be 

 carefully avoided. The tube to the 

 stigma or ovary has two lips at the top 

 end, the upper one longer than the 

 lower one forming a flap or lid ; above 

 this is the male or pollen-bearing part 

 hanging over as though on a hinge at 

 the top of a column. The process of 

 fertilisation or pollination as it is 

 generally called consists of taking the 

 flower between the thumb and second 

 finger of the left hand with the fore- 

 finger at the back of the top of the little 

 column, placing the fertilising tool side- 

 ways flat against the front of the column 

 and gently lifting it. 



First, the lower lip is lifted, or rather 

 both are lifted together ; then the lower 

 one, being shorter, slips from under the 

 tool, leaving the aperture open. The 

 pollen glands are then lifted, and the 

 upper lip, which prevents the pollen 

 falling in naturally, is forced behind 

 them, and the pollen glands fall for- 

 ward again. Now, care must be taken 

 not to raise the tool any further, or 

 the part containing the pollen is cut 

 off. At this juncture the flower is held 

 between the fertilising tool and the 

 first finger of the left hand, the left 

 thumb is then gently pressed on top of 

 the pollen masses, pressing them on to 

 the stigma, where they stick, while the 

 tool is withdrawn sideways, and the 

 pollination is complete. 



The vine blossoms in Queensland be- 

 tween September and November. Each 

 cluster consists of some fifteen to twenty 

 flowers, which open successively at the 

 rate of not more than three, and gener- 

 ally only one, a day. These flowers 

 remain open only the one day, and 

 pollination is difficult as well as most 

 uncertain once the flower has begun to 

 wither. It is necessary, therefore, to go 

 round the plantation every day in the 

 flowering season, round every vine, and 

 to each cluster, once it has begun to 

 opeu its blossoms. The pollinating is 

 best done in the forenoon, from sun- 

 rise to noon or not later than about 

 2 p.m. 



In this time a good worker may 

 pollinate 1,000 flowers ; it would be a 

 fairly large plantation to average 1,000 



