Feb. 2, 1903.] 
THE TiiOPICAL AGRICULTURIST 
517 
The reason why I have recommended the proourine 
of seed from Bangalore is that it is the best variety of 
Papaya I have yet seen. 
There is one point, however, which the e;rower most 
make himself acquainted with. The Papaya tree 
carries the male and female on separate trees. The 
male tree bears its flowers in large loose bunches which 
hang down, and the stems on which the flowers are 
borne are from one to three feet long. The female 
tree bears stemless flowers, attached close to the main 
stem or trnnk of the tree. Therefore, as soon as the 
trees show flowers, all the male trees, pxcept one, 
should be uprooted and thrown away. Some trees 
bear what botanists call " hermaphrodite ' flowers, that 
is, they carry the two sexes in the same flower. These 
are no good as fruit bearers and should be treated as 
males and thrown away unless yon wish to grow a plant 
or two as a curiosity. It is import.Tnt to bear the fore- 
going in mind and thus avoid much dis»ppointment. I 
have often heard my friends say that their Papaya trees 
never bear fruit, though they are covered with flowers. 
On looking at them, I have always found the trees to 
belong to the ' male persuasion." 
If you like the Papaya fruit and wish to get it of 
good quality follow the' foregoing hints. Thers is no 
reason why everyone should not have his or her own 
Papaya trees in pots and tubs if there is no garden or 
grounds to grow the tree in. The tree fruits in one 
year from time of sowing the seed, so it is easy enough. 
Asr.A-TEUR Gardener. 
The Indian Agriculturist. 
BUDDED AND SEEDLING ORANGE 
TREES. 
Budded Orange Trees are Dying out by Scores 
IN SOME Groves, While the Good old Seedlings in 
THE Pastures goon Bearing Merrily. — Letter from 
CCERESPONDENT. 
Although the practice of using budded citrus trees 
has become generally adopted in the island, there 
are still a great many who look askance at the inno- 
vation, and remain staunch in their belief that seed- 
lings make the roost reliable and best trees. They 
point to seedling orange trees, self-grown, half wild 
unattended, uncultivated, which have been bearing 
steadily as far back, perhaps, as they remember ; 
strong, upstanding, healthy trees proof against s:ale 
insects, against drought, or wet, dieback or footroot, 
blight or beetles. And they compare s^l.ch (note the 
such) seedlings common everywhere in woodland and 
pasture, with certain budded trees in certain groves, 
(note VnQ certain) grown from seed, sown in beds, trans- 
planted, and well tended then transplanted to a 
nursery, budded, kept clean, and then planted 
out in a grove, where they are kept hoed fairly 
clean, forked round, limed, perhaps and manured 
and yet in two or three years, snails and beetles 
attack the leaves, grubs eat the roots, scale insects 
infest the whole tree, so that washing and spraying 
are begun as a necessary part of the cultivation or 
else the trees die out. Even with all such attention 
many trees die. This is all apparently plain, as is 
pointed out by many who do not believe in new 
fantled things (though the " new " things 'are often 
methods as old as the Pyramids), and often the 
Elanter of budded trees can only feebly excuse 
imself to the enthusiastic advocate of things as they 
were, and seedling trees, by saying he will get a crop 
in three or four years against the seedling man's 
eeven or eight, and that his will come true while the 
seedling trc; may turn out half-sour. 
Now let US bring comnion sense onlv to bear on 
this snbject, and leave out all thought of mystery 
and magic, fads and fancies, theories and tall talk. 
The stout seedling tree in the pasture, never culti- 
vated, yet, proof against disease, and always bearirg 
well, has germinated as the fittest of a million seeds 
deposited on the soil around has grown from thou- 
sands that sprang through the soil, has survived of 
hundreds of young trees that grew tip, has alore 
reached bearing of scores of its companions, has kept 
on bear ng of dozens that bore fruit and afterwards 
died out. Between this stray tree and the neigh- 
bouring strong orange tree, may be a space of 50 
or 60 feet, and between, bush of many kinds, a pear 
a breadfruit, an ackee, and so on. It invariably 
happens where there are clumps of seedling trees 
or two or three c'ose together, that they are infested 
with paiasites and pests of some kind, and are pocr 
trees, only their great grip of the soil np-keeping 
them. Almost every tree, or plant has its pecniiar 
pests, and as a rule these do not prey indiscri- 
minately upon plants of opposite characteristics so 
that when there is some inimical scale on an orange 
tree, and that tree is well separated by other trees 
from neighbours, there is not much chance of one 
particular pest, spreading fast or gaining the upper 
hand, for there is also likely to be some specific 
enmies preying upon it, enemies that may also be 
on the other kinds of trees between, ready to intercept 
it. Or if there does happen to be an indiscriminate 
pest, there aie al'osuretobe many enemies to prey 
upon it. It is this mixing up of economic plants in 
Jamaica, this apparently hopeless muddle of coffee 
cocoa, orange, breadfruit, pear ackee, bananas, plaL- 
tains, etc., all through each other that hag act- 
ually saved the island from the trouble, annoyance 
and lo?s through insect rests and diseases, that 
agriculturists in other lauds have suffered and are 
suffering from. California and Florida suffer heavily 
from these, and large sums have ti be spent yearly 
in combating them. In Ceylon, where there were 
miles upon miles of land under coffee alone, planta- 
tion after plantation adjoining, beautifully ' planted 
and well kept, the coffee industiy was ruined by a 
leaf disease, and the planters took to tea and cocoa. 
Now the ooioa trees have caused serious anxiety 
through dying out from a widespread and general 
disease, so 'hat the loss was calculated at 15 
to 20 per cent, of the annual crop, and a specialist 
had to be engaged to make minute investigations 
into the matter. Here, we have not had, with the 
exception of sugar and bananas, large stretches 
planted to one kind of plant alone, an estate after 
estate adjoining, growing one and the same product. 
But lately, we have had groves of orange trees set 
out, row upon row of nothing but orange trees. 
Hence, as in other orange growing countries, these" 
are excellent nurseries for the specific scale insects 
and other pests that feed upon citrus plants • and 
more than that, the various grubs and slugs' that 
lurk in the soil especially about rotten wood, finding 
every other thing cleared off, have therefore to feed 
upon what they can get. Even if they had never 
before touched the roots of orange frees it is certain 
that necessity, especially through hunger knows no 
law, and they would quickly adapt their tastes to 
what they could get. Hence the troubles of our orange 
growers, who finds insects of various kinds feeding 
on their trees, and injuring them, and grubs the 
larvae of various beetles, but particularly the "Fidler" 
beetles and their larvae the "makaka" grubs — feedmg 
on the roots of the orange trees. The larvaB formerly 
found plenty of rotten wood, in some form or other 
in the ground ; now they can find almost nothing 
but roots of orange trees. It these were entirely 
strong and healthy they would probably not touch 
them; but they find some injured, or bruised or 
diseased from some cause and they immediately find 
feedirg ground. They are probably voracious too, 
from their numbers and the scarcity of food, and a' 
small abrasion of a root that where enemies were 
not instantly on the spot to attack, would likely 
have healed quickly in a healthy tree and in sweet 
soil, is instantly attacked So that above and below 
our orange trees find enemies. But, we should fancy 
the enemies of these pests should increase propor- 
tionately ? Tes perhaps if we all knew what these 
