THE; MAGAZINB 
OF 
Tf)G mWOL OF AGRieULTURG, 
COLOMBO. 
Added as a Siippleineiit munlhiy to the " TROPICAL AGRIGULTUBIST." 
The following pages include the contents of the Magazine of the Scliool of 
Agriculture fur August : — 
Vol. V ] 
ATJGUST, 1893. 
[No. 2. 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
I O C O A seed for planting should 
be obtained from pods growing 
ou the stem of the tree. It 
I does not germinate sooner than 
the seeds from branch pods ; but I have observed 
it grows into a more robust plant than the latter. 
Since adhering strictly to this rule, and sowing 
the seed in small baskets made of areka bark; 
and planting them out just -when they were 
two mouths old, during the middle of April 
last— in fact planting them out whenever a 
couple of days' rain gave me a chance, albeit 
the proper time for planting or not — but with 
suiftcient artificial shade to protect it from the 
direct rays of the sun ; I have found that even 
after that protracted drought of twenty-three 
days between April and May last, the mortality 
among them from want of moisture in the ground 
was not at all what one might have expected 
under these circumstances. I assure my readers 
that in a field of 3,000 of these plants where 
I expected 90 % damaged, there were only 
about 200 failures ! 
It is not advisable to get the cacao seed to 
grow too soon as many people do l)y placing 
it about hiilf an inch below the surface of the 
soil ; for the result then is a very thin 
and wiry-looking plant liable to bo blown down 
by the wind or scorched by the heat of the 
6UQ. Ou the contrary, plant it flat 1 j inch duc^) ; 
it takes from two to three weeks to rise, when 
only good seeds grow and give fine strong 
plants. 
Although the genera and species of the two 
are wide apart, there is a strong affinity between 
the cacao and the jak fruit tree—both produce 
fruits from the stem as well as from the 
branches. It strikes me therefore as likely that 
the reason why jak trees cannot be evenly grown, 
even where the seed has been obtained from 
the best and largest fruit, is because the fruit 
has been one grown from the branch of the 
tree. In 1877 I planted several thousands of 
jak seed at stake along the roadsides of that 
well-known coffee estate " Gallekoluan," then 
only a new clearing, from fruits procured from 
the adjacent villages. These of course must 
have been fruits plucked from different trees 
and different parts of the trees. It was a severe 
disappointment to me to have seen that more 
than half of these seedlings had failed — some 
growing very poorly, and only a very small 
number rising up to beautiful plants. The estate 
has since changed hands and partly aban- 
doned, but the jak plants that survived are now 
lofty trees in full bearing. Who can say whether 
these trees were not grown from stem fruit 
seed, and those that failed were all from branch 
fruit seed ?■ A resident lately advertised in the 
local newspapers jak seed for sale at -50 cents 
a bushel. If these were of the proper kind I 
have indicated for planting, they ought to sell 
at several rupees a bushel. 
Your readers have no doubt heard of Kola and 
the wonderful hunger-satisfying virtues of this 
valuable article of commerce from Africa. Mr. 
George Wall, I think it was that introduced it into 
Ceylon, and one of his plants growing on 
Ankanda estate is now in bearing. Plants raised 
in the island are known to have changed hands at 
liO a piece, I would venture to draw atteutiOH t9 
