Oct. 1, 1900. J Supplement to the " Troyical AgnmUurist." 
293 
CULTIVATION OF THE ARECANUT IN 
BOMBAY DISTRICT. 
• 
[A note by Mr. J. W. Mollison, Deputy Director 
ot Agriculture, Poona.] 
{Cofitinued-) 
The palms are raised in seed-beds and are 
once transplanted before they are planted out 
permanently. The first seed-bed is carefully 
prepared, the soil is dug, broken fine and mixed 
with leafmould. Fully matured nuts from old 
trees are specially f-elected for planting. These 
are planted about 9 inches apart, in April. 
The seed-bed should be kept thoroughly moist. 
The shoots appear in June. The seedlings are 
transplanted in October into any moist place 
iu the garden or along the water-course? about 
2 feet apart and remain thus until permanently 
transplanted. This permanent transplantation is 
usually done towards the end of ths rains. 
In the following March the trees are manured 
with leaf manure and the manure is covered 
with fresh cut branchwood which is partially 
witlrered, but which retains the leaves. The 
object of placing a layer of small branches above 
the manure is to break the force of heavy 
rain- The rain soaks through the brushwood, 
moistens the manure, but does not carry it 
away as would be the case if it were uncovered 
or covered with soil or in any other ordinary 
way. 
The betel-trees are manured as described 
every second year and come into bearing in 
ten years or so. The plantains are maintained 
for some years after the betel-palms are per- 
manently plauted, but in time are removed and 
the cardamoms are planted between the palms 
and on the stems of the latter pepper vines 
are trained. 
The bharan gets more or less washed away 
during each mousoon and the channels more 
or ICfS damaged. This to some extent is pre- 
vented if plantain leaves, dried grass, and other 
available rubbish is put on the surface. But 
despite any precautions, the bhamn is more or 
less denuded. The earth from the pathway is 
therefore removed to repair the drainage channels, 
&c., and new Kogodali earth is brought in, in 
headloads from the cuttings which border the 
gardens and placed along the centre of the 
bkarans. This renewal is necessary at least 
every third year. It is an expensive opera- 
tion, but the excavation from the cuttings is 
done in a systematic manner, the area of the 
garden can be gradually extended. The trees 
in the first plantation of betel-palms generally 
stand wide apart, but as they grow other young 
trees are planted between them. A nursery is 
always maintained to provide young trees for 
this purpose and to replace those which die 
from time to time. 
Betel-trees are known to fruit for thirty or 
forty years, and there is a popular belief that 
they sometimes propagate much longer. On an 
average each tree has two bunches of fruit, 
sometimes three or four. But two good bunches 
yield as much as three or four inferior ones. 
The size of the bunches depends upon the manure 
used and upon the rainfall. A good bunch gives 
200 to 300 nuts, and a specially good one about 
400, with unfavourable ruin or cloudy weather 
in April or May, many of the young nuts fall off 
and a smaller number of nuts on each bunch 
reach maturity. The trees produce fiovrers in 
March and April and the nuts are ripe in Nov- 
ember or December, but to some extent the 
trees produce flowers and fruit out of season. 
Immediately below each bunch there is a frond, 
or leaf. It, with its sheath, remains attached 
to the tree for about two months after the inflores- 
cense comes. Then these leaves fall to the 
ground. A few additional leaves fall during 
the monsoon. The sheaths of the leaves are a 
valuable product in the garden economy, they 
are used to provide hoods for protecting the 
bunches of betel nuts from the rain. If not 
protected the nuts rot. Two sheaths are used 
to make one hood. 
The sheaths are skewered together to. form 
a hood by means of thin pieces of split bamboo 
in a manner which is easy to demonstrate, but 
difficult to describe in writing. The hood is 
made adjustable in a very ingenious manner: 
and when it is bound round the bunch with 
thongs of plantain bast, it efficiently wards 
off rain. 
The hoods are made and tied on by pro- 
fessionals who come from Mysore territory and 
below the ghats. A good workman can make 
250 hoods per day and is paid Es. 2 per 1000. 
This operation and tying them on carts at 
contract rates Rs. 10 to Ks. 12 per 1000 bunches 
and 2 meals per day, the men do not ascend 
and descend each tree, when once they have 
climbed up, they by means of slight exertion 
swing the tree and deftly catch hold of 
another and rarely descend to the ground for 
hours. The expert climbers who gather the 
fruit by cutting the bunches from the stem, 
gel ting Rs. 4 per 1000 bunchas and three meals 
per day. Some garden owners or their regular 
servants are experts in making hoods, in adjusting 
them, and in climbing the trees. It is extremely 
interesting to note the manner in which the 
work is done. The climbing in the fair season 
looks extremely simple and easy to an onlooker, 
but in the monsoon with falling rain the tall 
smooth stems are slippery and the ascending 
process is much more difficult. The climber 
first ties his feet together round the insteps 
with strongbands, stripped from the sheath and 
leaves of the betel palm : this helps him to 
grip the stem with his feet. He carries with 
him strung round the neck a wooden rest on 
which to sit when he gets to the top. This 
rest is shaped like a two armed pick, and through 
a hole which corresponds to the shaft hole of 
a pick, a rope is passed and spliced, so that 
it is endless, when the fruit is reached the 
rest is unstrung and attached to the tree. The 
double end of the rope is passed round the stem 
and is long enough to pass over the two prongs 
of the rest, and when drawn tight secures the 
rest to the tree. It does not slip down, because 
the circumference of the stem increases down- 
wards and the rings in the tree offer obstruction 
