ON THE CULTIVATION OP VANILLA IN MAURITIUS. 63 



plants have flowered. If the drainage keeps good, by laying a 

 stem in the soil where a plant may be required, and by annually 

 top-dressing the plants with such soil as before recomended for 

 new plantations (less the stones), new plantations seldom require 

 to be made. 



The plants may be trained to hurdles set upright as in a fence ; 

 or two of them may be joined at their tops and set apart at the 

 base in the form of a triangle ; or they may be laid flat, and 

 supported about a foot or so above the ground by stakes driven 

 into the soil, or by stones. The plants may also be trained on 

 stone walls, or over heaps of stones, where these are abundant, or 

 around the bases of the trunks of trees, or on small trees or 

 shrubs. The plants must always be kept within convenient 

 reach for fertilizing the flowers and for gathering the fruit. The 

 hurdles may be made of any sort of wire stretched on a frame, 

 allowing about a foot between each wire ; or they may be made of 

 wood. 



It is better to allow the stems to grow to a great length and 

 to turn them about where there are places for them, than to cut 

 off their points. That ought not to be done unless the tops are 

 required for cuttings, or to entice the stems to branch and 

 quickly cover the trellis. As a rule, the Vanilla bears its fruit 

 on the stems of the previous year's growth ; but so long as any 

 buds have neither produced flowers nor wood, they may still do 

 so. They seldom or never produce either of these from where 

 they had formerly done so. It may be, however, that time (two 

 or three years) is required for another set of buds to form in the 

 places of the former ones. 



In fertilizing the flowers, the sepals and petals must not be 

 removed. It is necessary to observe that there is a septum 

 between the pollen-mass and stigma, which covers the stigma 

 and prevents the pollen-mass from reaching it without the agency 

 of insects. 



The method adopted here, and I have heard of no other, is to 

 lay the " septum " underneath the staminal lid. This is very 

 simply and easily done, by any one, with either the point of a 

 quill or a fine-pointed stick. "We place whatever may be used 

 across the septum, and press it gently against the staminal lid, 

 which, having a natural spring, if I may use the term, rises with 

 the least pressure and falls again into its original position, but 

 with the septum underneath it. Then, when the " septum " is in 



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