.Tune, 1912.] 



515 



Edible Products. 



of your reaping the plant crop during 

 the months of high prices, you will in- 

 variably find your ratoons sway out. 

 Planting at 10 x 10 I could never recom- 

 mend, but 15 x 15 or 16 x 16, carrying 

 three suckers per stool, may be, and is, 

 I believe, practised with success on the 

 St, Catherine plains but with the aid of 

 irrigation. I would certainly not put 

 forward such distances for other parts 

 of the island. 



Size of Holes. 

 For 14 x 14 feet, make holes two feet 

 six inches square x 16 inches deep, and 

 for 11 x 11 feet 18 inches square x 16 

 inches deep, larger holes may be used 

 with advantage, but the cost of making 

 them will be correspondingly greater, 

 and if the land has been well forked 

 the advantage will be small but I cannot 

 pass from this part without deprecating 

 the use of very small holes. The dis- 

 advantages are many, and I can think . 

 of no advantage beyond that of cheap- 

 ness. 



Seed Suckers. 

 These may be divided into five descrip- 

 tions, each may be planted, if required, 

 but must be treated in a certain way to 

 obtain best results. 



1. Sword.— Some planters wholly give 

 against this form of sucker, yet in cer- 

 tain situations they will be found better 

 than any other, viz., in supplying gall" 

 spots in established fields also adjacent 

 to overhanging trees that for some rea- 

 son have been left in the field, they are 

 the only form of sucker that make a 

 good and vigorous growth on the out- 

 side rows next to partial or heavy wood 

 land. A sword sucker to be of value as 

 a plant must be at least six feet high, 

 and not more than eight feet. They 

 should be planted in an upright position 

 with all the leaves trimmed off, except 

 the unopened heart one. 



2. A Sword cut back to within eight 

 inches of the bulb, this instead of being 

 planted in an upright or slanting posi- 

 tion, as is often done, should be placed 

 flat on its side in the hole, the heart 

 eye will then "pop" through, the part 



laying uppermost, and in time form 

 quite a good sucker. These should only 

 be used on moist soils, for the bulb being 

 small, on dry land there is a tendency 

 to dry out. Do not plant this kind of 

 sucker therefore unless better cannot be 

 procured. 



3. The Maiden Sucker, cut back to 

 within four or six inches of the bulb, 

 and measuring anything from eight 

 inches to fourteen inches across the cut 

 surface ; this is undoubtedly the best 

 seed sucker of all, but unfortunately 

 cannot always be secured, as sometimes 

 a high price must be paid for them. The 

 heart eye should be destroyed, all roots 

 cleaned off, and outside eyes cut away 

 with the exception of the most pronounc- 

 ed one. It is not advisable to allow the 

 heart eye to grow and form the plant, for 

 unless the seed sucker be fairly young, 

 there is a tendency for the plant to 

 form a new bulb on top of the old one, 

 this new bulb growing somewhat out of 

 the ground, the first wind that comes 

 along bowls it over ; also if the seed 

 sucker be old, say of eight to ten months 

 growth, the resultant plant never gives 

 more than a six or seven hand bunch 

 the first crop. 



A Maiden Sucker should always be 

 planted in an upright position so long as 

 the hole is of sufficient depch to allow 

 a covering up of at least eight inches 

 over the eye. Planting them slanting, 

 as is sometimes done, nearly always 

 denotes a niggardly cultivator, for so as 

 to save the cost for a large hole, he makes 

 them shallow, and has to resort to this 

 method to get sufficient covering of earth 

 for the eye, which he places either to the 

 side or underneath. 



4. Heads or bulbs of suckers from 

 which fruit has been cut if fresh i.e. 

 the yam still showing a white colour 

 and no signs of "sourness," can be safely 

 used, but any large eyes having a '* neck " 

 where attached to the bulb must be 

 cut off, and only one well pronounced 

 eye left to grow. 



5. Split Heads. Sometimes when heads 

 are very large they are cut in halves, one 

 eye being left on each piece. I would 



