Edible Products. 



516 



tJUNE, 1912. 



not advise the planting of this form 

 of seed sucker unless your land is fairly 

 moist (but not wet) or you are certain 

 of rain in the immediate future, as a 

 head split in two soon dries out if left 

 exposed or planted in dry soil. 



Some planters select seed suckers from 

 two weeks to a month in advance of 

 planting, putting them in heaps frcm 

 two feet six inches to three fdet high 

 covering the heaps with banana trash 

 to keep in the moisture. I have tried 

 this method, but failed to get any better 

 results than when I planted freshly 

 gathered suckers, except in cases where 

 I had to resort to indifferent ones, and 

 was forced to adopt this plan to find 

 out which had growing eyes and those 

 that were barren. So long as the eyes 

 on your suckers are good, and fairly well 

 developed, plant them right away. 



Suckers to be used for planting, no 

 matter of what description, should be 

 carefully gathered. I know this is no 

 easy matter when they have to be dug 

 from stools growing in stiff clay soils, 

 but care should be taken that they are 

 injured as little as possible, especially 

 in the case of sword or youns> maiden 

 suckers, you must avoid wringing them, 

 i.e., bending tne soft part of the sucker 

 just where it joints the bulb. Any 

 sucker so injured is practically worth- 

 less. 



(To be Continued.) 



TROPICAL INDUSTRIES. 



The Cashew Not. 



By Howard Newport, 

 Instructor in Tropical Agricul- 

 ture, Cairns. 



(Prom the Queensland Agricultural 

 Journal, Vol. XXVIII., Part 3, 

 March, 1912.) 



In and around some of the oldest town° 

 ships of North Queensland one frequent- 

 ly comes across imported trees and plants 

 possessing a high economic value, the 

 properties, the name, and often even the 

 very existence of which is unknown to 

 $he present settlers, 



In such places as Cooktown, Cardwell, 

 Bowen, and the Herbert River district 

 many such valuable trees and shrubs are 

 to be seen. These are mostly in the 

 gardens surrounding some of the oldest 

 houses or sites of old residences, in 

 Botanical Gardens or what were once 

 such, and often, on isolated spots in 

 perhaps the middle of a grazing paddock 

 or patch of secondary scrub, that make 

 the sites of the original home-steads of 

 early farmers or settlers of which noth- 

 ing now remains to indicate a once 

 flourishing garden but an irregular group 

 or broken avenue of such trees. Among 

 these the mango is usually conspicuous, 

 but the taste and fancy of the original 

 and long gone pioneer is exemplified in 

 the varieties and kinds of trees, that, 

 evidently chosen with wisdom, collected 

 and obtained with difficulty, and planted 

 and tended with the greatest care, must 

 often never have attained maturity or 

 fruited during his time, and now wastes 

 its value and rarity cn, a too often, 

 totally unappreciative owner. 



In many such instances the individual 

 tastes of the pioneer, born possibly of an 

 acquaintance with, and appreciation of, 

 certain fruits, nuts, &c, in some other 

 tropical country, will no doubt account 

 for the existence of particular species ; 

 but in very many instances, though 

 actual trace of their origin is lost, the 

 distribution of economic plants to loca- 

 lities specially suited to their successful 

 propagation can be largely accounted 

 for by the work of the Acclimatisation 

 Society of Bowen Park, Brisbane, in the 

 early days of its existence, and to 

 membership of it by the early settlers 

 thirty and possibly forty years ago. 



No doubt, also, many other plants, 

 shrubs, and trees of interest to the settler 

 as reminding him of other climes, or the 

 establishment of which was judged as 

 within the realms of possibility, were 

 thus obtained, planted and subsequently 

 lost, Also doubtless numbers of such 

 more or less uncommon. trees have been 

 destroyed, even after showing their 

 adaptability to their new conditions, 

 either purposely or unintentionally by 

 later settlers who "knew not Joseph, 



