and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society,— April, 1912. 375 



To ensure a good fruit crop an annual appli- 

 cation of manure should be given— old, well 

 rotted cattle being as good as anything. This 

 is dug in around the stem, and water given 

 pretty freely. 



Much pruning is not required, but all dead 

 and weak shoots and growths should be cut out, 

 and a nice-shaped tree induced to develop. 



When the young fruits are about the size of 

 marbles they must be thinned out, and only 

 one fruit left on each small fruiting stem. 



Limes. — There are several different Limes. Mr 

 H b Macmillan mentions ten varieties in his 

 book on "Tropical Gardening'' We may quote 

 from him as follows : — 



Patee — a small round fruit, much esteemed. 



Kaghuzee—oi the size of a hen's egg, in most 

 general cultivation. 



Gora. — A small oval fruit much cultivated. 



Kamuralee. — A large handsome fruit of pale 

 lemon colour about the size of a small coconut. 



Rungpore. — A round smooth-skinned fruit. 



Taba. — A large globose, spongy fruit. 



Kaffir Lime — in (Jeylon isalmost the sizo of 

 a lemon, with a warty, coarse skin. 



dipineless Lime. — A sportof the ordinary Lime, 

 said to have originated in Dominica in 1891, 

 the stem and branches being without the 

 usual formidable spines. 



Seedless Lime.-Ln recent years several 

 varieties of Limes have been raised whose 

 fruit are almost, if not quite free from seed. 

 The "Persian Seodless " or "Tahiti Lime" 

 is reported as being the chief variety grown iu 

 Cuba, the fruit being prolific and containing a 

 high percentage of citric acid. 



Of the Sweet Lime, also imported by the 

 Agricultural Society, Mr. MacMillan says : — 



This is a distinct variety, the fruit of which 

 is of the form of a moderate t ized orange, with 

 smooth pale-green rind. It has a sweetish in- 

 stead of an acid taste and is considered very 

 refreshing and agreeable. 



The Lemon. 



This excellent fruit grows well at medium 

 and high elevations in the Tropics, but the 

 fruit itself is not so good as those grown in 

 cooler climates where it gets a winter rest. The 

 late Mr. Nock said that the Lemon in Ceylon in- 

 variably dies from exhaustion after 6 or 8 years. 



The Citron is another tree of this family 

 which so far has not been very successfully culti- 

 vated in Ceylon. 



THE GRAPE. 



Several varieties of the Grape Vine have 

 been imported into Ceylon by the Agricultural 

 Society, including the Black Hamburg and 

 Muscat of Alexandria. We tee little real use in 

 importing Grapes into Ceylon : it is extremely 

 improbable that they can be grown here suc- 

 cessfully. They will not do up in the hills, 

 and a trial of them at Hakgala Gardens under 

 glass only terminated in failure. Grapes will 

 not stand a moist, damp climate ; they require 

 a dry heat when ripening the fruit and a cold 

 resting time, when all growth is suspended. 



As we are of opinion that Grapes will not 

 succeed in Ceylon we do not propose devoting 

 much space to their cultivation. The only place 

 where Grapes have been grown in Ceylon with 

 any likelihood of success is in the North of 



the Island in the Jaffna district, but even 

 there they are rot at all satisfactory. Mr. H. F. 

 MacMillan writes as follows in his " Handbook 

 of Tropical Gardening " regarding grape-growing 

 Ceylon : " In the dry provinces of India grapes 

 of very fair quality are grown, both from exotic 

 and indigenous sorts, while in the dry nor- 

 thern part of Ceylon certain varieties of grape 

 have long been cultivated with some degree of 

 success. Here the want of a winter rest, which 

 is so essential to the plant, is partially sup- 

 plied by baring the roots and exposing them to 

 the sun. This operation is rosorted to once a 

 year about the time of the principal pruning, in 

 July. A practical experiment which was made 

 a few years ago in Colombo, under the super- 

 vision of an expert viticulturist, proved con- 

 clusively the unsuitability of the uniformly 

 steamy and hot climate here to the Giape 

 Vine. Exhaustive efforts have also been made 

 by Mr. W. Nock at Hakgala Gardens in growing 

 vines in a glass-house which, however, ended 

 in failure as regards the production of fruit." 

 Treatment in Ceylon, and Yield. 



In case our readers iu the North wish to 

 go in for a trial with Grapes, now that good 

 sort3 are available from the Agricultural Society, 

 we give the following note on the treatment 

 of the vine and the yield in Jaffna fro.n Mr. Mae- 

 Millan's most useful book, a book on Garden- 

 ing in the Tropics which can be strongly re- 

 commended to our readers. 



Pruning and Thinning.— The usual pruning 

 is carried out after the crop \is over, all lateral 

 shoots being pruned back once a year, to within 

 two or three buds of the main stem and any 

 unnecessary growth removed. In order to ob- 

 tain fruit of the best quality the berries should 

 be thinned out by meaus of a pair of fine 

 scissors, and the bunches also reduced in num- 

 ber. Tn Jaffna two crops a year are obtained, the 

 principal one in March and the second in Septem- 

 ber. The fruit takes three to four months to ripen 

 from the time of flowering, the vines each pro- 

 ducing an annual crop of from 100 to 300 lb. or 

 more, which is sold at 30 to 50 cents per lb." 



Mr MacMillan states that a mixture of loamy 

 soil and decomposed cattle manure suits the 

 grape vine well ; and in Jaffna fish manure is 

 considered the best fertiliser, though the 

 natives have a strong belief in thevalueof salt 

 as a manure for Grapes. Old, well rotted cattle 

 manure is good for vines, also old bones; for the 

 Grape Vine is a rank gross feeder and feeds on 

 almost anything rich and strong. 



cotton cultivation bn 

 Turkestan* 



Consul-General John H Snodgrass, of Moscow, 

 reports that the Russian government has been 

 assisting in many ways the growers of trans- 

 Caspian cotton. It appears from official reports 

 that in the autumn of 1910 the agricultural de- 

 partment organised the first cotton-seed plan- 

 tation in Turkestan. 



In 1911 one such station was working in the 

 Namangansk district of the Ferghana Oblast, 

 covering an area of fifty-three dessiatines 

 (about 143 acres). Here three systems of culti- 

 vation were applied : First, by machinery only, 



