« 
^8 THE TROPICAL 
good soil, such as I have, the banana', requires manur- 
ing after the second or third year— stable manure or 
rou^;h we.eda. The manuring may be called mulching. 
Mulching, of course, means spreading the manure 
over the roots and surface of the stool of plants, but 
here, with the hot absorbing sun, the overspreading of 
soil on whatever is applied is necessary. Shelter 
from wind is most necessary for bananas, and 
for practically all Coast fruit. There cannot be 
too much of it, for the wind is our worst enemy. 
Every fruit-grower here should have high trees, say 
gums, growing as break- winds to the south and west 
of his farm. Orange trees are also good for shelter, 
and mealies help at a critical time. It is distressing 
for a grower to see all the beautiful leaves of his 
bananas torn into ribbons, as for the most part they 
are." 
MANGOES AND PINKAPPLES. 
"The most marketable mango is the 'Bombay.' It is 
very la.rge and not at all stringy. For my own eating 
I prefer the common kind. This country, however, 
is barely tropical enough for the mango. A cold, wet 
spring is fatal to the blossom, and such springs are 
, not infrequent. In favourable seasons, however, crops 
are very heavy." 
" The ' Jamaica Queen' is the best pine. It does 
not top-sucker so much as the ordinary Natal kind. 
Pines, like potatoes, mealies, nuts, &c., require 
periodical changing. Pines should be top-dressed 
before fruiting. They require good land, and are bene- 
fitted by artificial manures — potash, preferably. Bet- 
ween the middle of October and the middle of 
December pine s often fetch from .Ss to 8s per dozen, 
for large, well-grown fruits, and afterwards they 
become a diug, and fetch barely as many pence. 
Jam-makers rarely offer more than a halfpenny per lb- 
for them, and, as they need only half a pound of sugar 
for the pound of fruit, the returns should ba good at 
the price jam is sold. Messrs. Barker Bros., living 
near here, are generally recognised as the growers of 
the finest pines." 
CITRUS FRUIT. 
"For the white man, the owner of land, citrus 
cultivation, in my opinion, is the most desirable. 
When once an orchard of these trees has been es- 
tablished—about seven years is necessary — he is in 
a good position. The profits are good, and the annual 
outlay in liibour becomes comparatively small. 
■Which of the varieties ia best to plant? I unhesitatingly 
reply the naartje— a Dutch name. It is really the 
mandarin orange, or perhaps more correctly the Ohina 
orange, although originally it came from Assam, India. 
We are much in want on the Coast of a Fruit 
Growers' Society, to attend, among other things, to 
the nomenclature of our fruit. For instance, the 
Cayenne pmeapple is popularly called the Queen, 
and Isabel grapes are called Catawbas, and so on. 
The common orange does not pay well, only Is 6d 
to 2s per hundred, on the average. The naartje, on 
the other hand, -fatchps 2s to 5s per 100 ; it is less 
bulky, and travels well. Naartjes require plenty 
of attention. Half-a-dozen different blights. — 
mussel, green and round scales, American blight, &o. 
attack the trees from the earliest stage upwards, and 
the paraffin emulsion sprayer is in almost constant 
employment. Grasshopper ' soldiers,' who strip off 
the young b irk, are also at times a great nuisance. 
I always plaint from seed, and in tins, choosing only 
seed fj-ora th'i largest and finest quality fruits. Some 
prefer ,c;ral'fcint; on to lemon stocks. I think the fruit 
is not no good, although I know many will disagree 
with ni j on that point, and the gain in time, if the 
grov/ing of the stocks is taken into consideration, is 
practically nothing. Naartjes should be transplanted 
in the second and third year. They require good soil. 
Where my soil is too light, I put on ant-heap. All 
along the Coast we have p.nt-he;ips l/en f ■set high, and 
more in diarn'iter. The soil o£ which they are com- 
posed is of the most tenacious character, and is just 
,t/? thing wanted for sandy lands. Our soil is in 
AGRICULTURIST [July 1, 1901. 
great need of lime, and I hope, when the Port Shop- 
stone railway is opened, that we shall be able to get 
it at a moderate price. I give my trees bone dast. 
In setting out naartjes, I always plant just a trifle 
above the general surface. No earth should be thrown 
up against the stems or canker will follow. In 
manuring it should always be borne in mind that the 
side roots extend for a long way from the stem, 
and that they are never deeper than twelve inches 
from the surface. Proper pruning is most essential. 
At 18 or 20 in. from the ground let the tree branch 
out. I can show you an object lesson in this matter. 
One tree, which 1 pruned up to 2ft 6in, is as miserable 
a specimen as can well be conceived, and the next, 
with a short stem, where the soil and other conditions 
are identical, is about as fine a specimen as a grower 
can wish to see. The wood is hard, and the outer 
bark is closely attached to the wood, and will not 
stand the direct rays of the Bun, especially when the 
thermometer registers — as it does sometimes — 90 to 
95 in the shade. The fruit should be all off by the 
middle of September. The ' Spanish Lemon ' is also 
a good citrus for planting. The demand locally is 
small, but in England they would sell well. Some 
years ago I sent a small lot to Messrs. Wm. Draper & 
Sons, of Convent Garden, one of the leading fruit- 
broking firms in London, and the lemons were valued 
at 123 per 100 there in October or November, — Natal 
Mercury, April 15. 
AN ISLAND ROMANCE. 
The Story of Ohrlstmas Island, 
During the century whicii has just pas.sed, tlie . 
stream of population has practically completed the 
circle of the globe, yet it was only in its closing 
years that a tiny little colony was founded on an 
islet in the Indian Ocean, whose history to future 
generations promises to read as thrillingly as a tale 
from the Arabian Nights. 
Far away in the Southern Seas, some 20O miles 
from the cost of the ancient " land of gold," and 
almost 1,000 miles from the sunny country of the 
Golden Fleece, there may be descried this littlespeck 
of land jutting heavenwards like an emerald cone. 
Scientists regard it as an upraised coral alol, and 
take a peculiar interest in it from the fact that 
until the past few years it was the only known 
tropical island of any large extent which Las never 
been inhabited by a savage or a civilised race. 
It is called Christinas Island. Why, no man 
living can tell. As to the date of its first dis- 
covery, the past is equally oblivious ; yet it has 
been an object of spasmodic attention on the part 
of voyagers on the high seas for at least two and 
a-half centuries. 
In 1666 the wandering Dampier of H- lland 
"sighted this small woody island, and since that 
date it has appeared in Dutch maps, but it was 
not until 1886 that a British surveying vessel suc- 
ceeded in finding an anchorage and in landing 
and partially exploring the island. The following 
year H M S "Egeria" made further explorations, 
and the conclusion of the commander, in the light 
of what has since happened, is interesting : — ' Man. 
has never lived on Christmas Island, nor would 
it be a pleasant residence, as, apart from the tact 
that there is no water — the rains sicking into the 
limestone rock — the extreme discomfort of loco- 
motion, and the absence of any harbour, whence 
the product could be conveniently shi[)ped, will 
deter any settler from seeking a home there until 
other move favourable spots are occupied.' With- 
in ten years or so after this prophecy, the island 
has a population living and thriving on it of some 
600 souls, and from the phosphate deposits found 
