Edible Products. 



508 



[December, 1909. 



appeared to me to be open to two ob- 

 jections. In the first place, if by the time 

 the seed has sprouted there should be a 

 break in the rains, the sprouted seed 

 cannot be held back, and if broadcasted 

 would be liable to perish. In the second 

 place, the sprouted seed is liable to be 

 injured by handling. I therefore de- 

 cided to try new methods — new at least 

 to this district. The first was to broad- 

 cast dry seeds on dry land and then to 

 give the land light ploughing to cover 

 up the seeds. 



The second was to raise the seedlings 

 by irrigation before the rains com- 

 menced, and to transplant them immedi- 

 ately after the rains set in. Both these 

 methods succeeded exceedingly well. 

 By the month of August when water 

 rose to five feet in the land the paddy 

 plants were six feet high, and so were 

 not submerged and survived the floods. 

 Furthermore, the plants were reaped 

 when ripe about the same time as the 

 later sowing on other fields. 



The kinds that grew best were Yehini 

 and Shangley. The qualities of both 

 were as superior as those grown on 

 ordinary paddy lands. These experi- 

 ments have been under successful trial 

 for three years. 



It has thus been demonstrated that 

 in low-lying lands, where floods do not 

 permit of good paddy being grown ac- 

 cording to the ordinary methods, it can 

 be grown successfully if cultivated 

 earlier than usual. 



Besides, there was an advantage in 

 ploughing land during the dry season, 

 A plot of land Avhich in previous years 

 when ploughed during the rains pro- 

 duced poor crops, was looked upon as 

 poor land. 



This area yielded excellent crops when 

 ploughed in the dry weather. This 

 proved the advantages of dry weather 

 ploughing and exposing ploughed land 

 to the sun. 



This method of dry weather ploughing 

 is being adopted by some of my neigh- 

 bours, who now see that under certain 

 circumstances a departure from old 

 methods is conducive to improved culti- 

 vation, 



For low-lying lands there is, of course, 

 the water-resisting paddy known by 

 the Burmese names of Todaungbo or 

 Yemanaing, which for the last two years 

 has been making headway in this dis- 

 trict ; but the grain does not find favour 

 with the millers. 



THE CULTIVATION OF THEOBROMA 

 CACAO OR CACAO. 



By A. Fauchere, 

 Assistant Inspector of Agriculture in 

 Madagascar. 



(From the Philippine Agricultural 

 Review, Vol, II., No. 6, June, 1909.) 



The Establishment of the 

 Plantation. 

 A plantation may be started in two 

 ways — by planting the seeds directly or 

 by using plants already started in a nur- 

 sery. Each of these methods has its 

 partisans and its adversaries. It seems 

 to me that these differences in opinion 

 are due to the different conditions under 

 which the observations were made. 

 Thus, Guerin, in his work, " Culture du 

 Cacao a la Guadaloupe, " utterly con- 

 demns the using of nursery stock, while 

 the planters of Surinam and Madagas- 

 car usually plant trees that have been 

 six or eight months in a nursery. 



It is very evident that in the cacao 

 lands in Guadaloupe, usually formed of 

 decomposed volcanic rock, it would be 

 impossible to raise the plants with balls 

 of earth about their roots, and conse- 

 quently the transplanting might be very 

 harmful. This difficulty is not encoun- 

 tered when the soil is heavy. The young 

 trees can be balled easily and do not suffer 

 at all in transplanting. Furthermore, 

 Guerin is quite wrong in saying that the 

 taproot is the essential part of the cacao, 

 and that the least injury to it results in 

 the death of the tree. In Trinidad, when 

 transplanting is done on the plantations, 

 the ends of the taproots of the nursery 

 trees are out off, and they do not suffer 

 in the least. 



Studies made at the Ivoloina Experi- 

 ment Station by my colleague, Mr. Des- 

 landes, have proved that the cacao tree, 

 like mos?t other vegetable species, under- 

 goes transplanting and shortening of 

 the taproot without any bad results. 

 Be that as it may, planting directly by 

 seeds is the method most employed. 

 In Surinam both methods are used, but 

 this one is used exclusively in Trinidad, 

 Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and all the 

 countries in which cacao planting is done 

 on a large scale. 



In Madagascar, so far, nursery trees 

 are planted, but it is probable that seed 

 planting will be done in the future, even 

 though the results of attempts in this 

 line at the Tamatave Experiment Station 

 have not yet been satisfactory. In the 

 valley of Mangoro, however, there is a 

 small plantation that was started from 

 seeds. 



