August, 1910.] 



115 



Edible Products. 



Date Harvested. 

 1907. 



August 



September 



October 



November 



December 



... 27 



... 24 



... 22 



... 12 



... 3 



... 17 



Year's total 1908 

 January ... 3 

 ... 9 



February ... 20 

 Total 



Total number of 

 pods harvested. 



26 



37 



63 



99 

 139 

 307 



1,817 

 533 

 361 

 344 



1,238 



The table showing a year's produce 

 from selected ttees, being an actual 

 yield, is strong evidence that progress 

 on the lines of selection of prolific and 

 disease-resisting kind will be the best 

 means of increasing the annual yield, and 

 that there is a large margin between the 

 yield per tree here found and that 

 which estates are at present credited. 

 If trees under ordinary culture can 

 produce the yield of our table, it is 

 surely possible, given well-planted trees 

 of the same character (produced by 

 budding or grafting), to increase mater- 

 ially the annual yield, leaving out all 

 reference to increase by manuring. 



The period of growth of a cacao pod 

 from flower to maturity extends from 

 four and a half to five mouths, that is, 

 from the opening of the flower to the 

 ripening of the pod, but this period may 

 be extended, owing to the facility with 

 which the ripened pods remain in that 

 state upon the trees, for some days or 

 even weeks after they have reached full 

 maturity. It is not good practice, how- 

 ever, to allow them to remain too long 

 upon the tree, or the quality of the pro- 

 duce will suffer considerable deterior- 

 ation. If they remain much too long it 

 will be found that the seeds have begun 

 growth in the pod and instead of market- 

 able material, there will be nothing but 

 a mass of matted roots. If they com- 

 mence to grow and the radicle or first- 

 root pierces the ' shell ' of the seed, it 

 leaves an aperture which allows of the 

 - entrance of mould fungi while drying, 

 and thus lowers the value of the sample. 

 The facility with which pods hang for a 

 time upon the trees without hazarding 

 quality assists generally the economy of 

 the harvest work. 



Yield clearly depends, first upon the 

 kind of tree cultivated ; secondly, upon 

 the richness of the soil or the natural 

 amount of plant food available ; thirdly, 

 upon the artificial which may be applied ; 

 and last, by no means least, ithe amount 



of skill which is brought to bear by the 

 cultivator in maintaining conditions 

 suitable for the production of large crops. 



There -are diverse opinions as to 

 methods to be adopted for securing this 

 result, among which are, first, the abol- 

 ition of the use of shade; second, the 

 adoption of seminal selection ; both of 

 which have been recently advocated 

 (1910) in Trinidad. These points and 

 others more advanced have been fully 

 discussed in preceding pages, but our sug- 

 gestions may be again stated briefly : — 



(1) The selection of standardization of 

 certain types of cacao and the propaga- 

 tion of these by budding or grafting as 

 in fruit orchards. 



(2) The abandonment of propagation 

 by seed on account of the accessive vari- 

 ation that occurs under any method of 

 seminal or seed selection ; that is, the 

 trees cannot be made to come true from 

 seed. 



(3) By better symptoms of cultivation 

 and preparation. 



CITRUS GROWING IN CUBA. 



By H. O Henricksen. 



(Illustrated.) 

 The climate would not seem to be a 

 pertinent question in an Island like 

 Cuba, where it ought to be taken for 

 granted that it would not be variable 

 enough to influence the growth of citrus 

 trees. That is broadly speaking correct. 

 It is never cold enough to freeze nor 

 hot enough to scorch, but those two 

 extremes are far enough apart to make 

 considerable difference in the growth of 

 a citrus tree. It is, however, not so 

 much the temperature in which we are 

 directly interested. It is the wind and 

 the moisture, and it is so much more 

 necessary to discuss that, as it is the one 

 question usually forgotten by the people 

 mostly interested. 



Citrus groves in Cuba are usually 

 planted on land more or less overgrown 

 with forest, and the climate is judged 

 by the prospective settler, from the 

 natural conditions as he finds them. 

 He buys perhaps a hundred acres or 

 more, or a thousand acres may be sold to 

 colonists in smaller parcels, and that 

 land is cleared with only one object in 

 view, viz., to get the forest cut down and 

 burned as quickly as possible. On such 

 large stretches of land with nothing to 

 obstruct the wind, the climate is quite 

 different from what it was when the 

 forest waa there. The still, humid atmo- 



