Edible Products. 



412 



[May, 1912. 



MANGO CULTIVATION. 



By D. L. Narayan Rao, 

 Proprietor, Nursery Gardens, 

 Hyderabad (Deccan). 

 (Prom the Agricultural Journal of India, 

 Vol. VI., Part IV., October, 1911.) 

 The mango is pre-eminently the fruit 

 of India, and rich and poor anxiously 

 wait for the advent of the mango season. 

 In gardens it is given the foremost place, 

 and its absence in any garden is a matter 

 for regret. There are no records avail- 

 able as to the actual area under mango 

 cultivation in India. This is probably 

 due to the difficulty of securing even 

 approximately correct information re- 

 garding the innumerable varieties scat- 

 tered all over the land. The total area 

 is undoubtedly large. 



The cultivation of mangoes is not 

 equally remunerative everywhere. In 

 Northern India where the tree is com- 

 mon, good mango fruit sells at 20 seers 

 or more per rupee, and in Hyderabad 

 good local fruit is never sold at more 

 than 8 seers for the rupee— the average 

 being only 4 seers. Though Hyderabad 

 possesses extensive gardens in and around 

 it, yet the local supply which is avail- 

 able in May and June is always insuffi- 

 cient to meet the demand. Out of sea- 

 son and early in season Hyderabad gets 

 its supply of this fruit from other parts. 



The consignments of mangoes from the 

 East Coast, Poona, Bangalore, Chittoor, 

 Salem and other places compete fairly 

 with the local supply even after paying 

 railway freights for long distances. 



Many people in the Deccan and other 

 places complain that mango gardens are 

 run at a loss. Others are planting large 

 areas with it as a safe investment in the 

 belief that they must pay. Some of the 

 large mango gardens were planted by 

 rich men, when the economic conditions 

 of the country were different from what 

 they are now, with the special object of 

 getting as many good varieties of fruit 

 as possible for personal requirements, 

 while profit was only a secondary object. 

 Other gardens planted partly for per- 

 sonal needs and partly with commercial 



motives are only imitations of the above 

 with regard to principles of gardening. 

 In them very little care is taken with 

 respect to selection either of soils or of 

 varieties of mango. 



The idea that mangoes grow equally 

 well in shallow and in deep fertile soils 

 is not based on a careful observation of 

 facts. All successful mango gardens are 

 situated in soils which have at least a 

 depth of 5 feet with good drainage and 

 moisture under ground. Hence the fact 

 remains that the best yielders and 

 longest lived and healthiest trees are 

 found in deep fertile retentive soils. In 

 places like the districts of North Arcot, 

 Salem, Bangalore, Bunganpally and the 

 vicinity of Waltair, etc., where the 

 successful cultivation of mangoes has 

 become traditional, the garden owners 

 possess much practical knowledge on the 

 subject. In these districts varieties 

 eminently fitted for commercial purposes 

 were selected long ago and grown ex- 

 tensively with the result that these dis- 

 tricts have been able to supply mangoes 

 every year to distant markets up to the 

 end of August or even later. (1) Dilpa- 

 sand, (2) Thoothapari, (3) Neelam, (4) Ka- 

 lapahad, (5) Nawab Pasand (Roomani) at 

 Arcot, ((5) Benishan, and (7) Shakerpara 

 at Bunganpally in the Kurnool district 

 are the chief commercial varieties. These 

 varieties have spread to almost all places 

 in Southern India and Deccan, and are 

 easily recognized by gardeners. 



The illustration given under the name 

 of Thoothapari at the end of Professor 

 Woodrow's book, " The Mango," belongs 

 to the real Dilpasand and not to Thooth- 

 apari. 



Sorb-Bearing. 

 The mango tree, even when grown in 

 a suitable soil and climate is a very un- 

 certainjbearer, and it is very difficult to 

 forecast whether the crop will be good 

 or bad. The hundreds of varieties ad- 

 vertised by nurserymen might be man- 

 goes of very good quality, but a major- 

 ity of them and a very large majority 

 of seedling mango trees in the country 

 are very unreliable with regard to fruit- 

 bearing. Some of them do not even 

 blossom once in two or three years, but 



