POLLINATION OF THE MANGO. 17 
that some are affected less injuriously by a wet soil than others. 
Most notable among those which flower under conditions somewhat 
unfavorable may be mentioned the Sandersha and the Julie of the 
grafted varieties and the No. 11 race among the seedlings. During 
the early spring of 1915, when the weather was unusually wet and the 
ground was scarcely allowed to dry out, all these came into bloom, 
while the Mulgoba and numerous other varieties failed to show any 
signs of bloom until the rains had ceased for a time and the wet spell 
had been followed by two weeks of dry, sunny weather. It is evident 
that in many varieties some check to vegetative growth, such as is 
given by a thorough drying of the soil, is necessary to encourage 
flowering. While conclusive evidence is lacking, it seems probable 
that fruit buds are not formed in the mango a long time in advance 
of the flowering season. This is in contrast to many temperate fruits, 
such as the apple, in which the fruit buds are formed during the 
summer, lie dormant overwinter, and appear as flowers in the spring. 
In the mango no indication of tissue differentiation to form fruit buds 
has been observed in the vegetative cones of the young branchlets until 
a very few weeks previous to the appearance externally of the young 
panicle. Thorough drying of the soil a few weeks before the normal 
flowering season, therefore, should be efficacious in encouraging the 
formation of fruit buds, and in practice this has proved many times 
to be the case. 
The necessary check to growth sometimes is produced artificially 
in the Tropics by roof pruning, hacking the trunk, or other means. 
It seems highly desirable, however, that the check be produced 
normally through the drying of the soil, and hence the best mango 
regions probably will remain those where the normal flowering season 
occurs at a time of year when the weather is usually dry. It is 
significant, however, that some varieties seem to require this check 
to a less degree than others, and this may make possible the cultiva- 
tion of choice varieties which will be much more regular in fruiting 
than the Mulgoba when grown under slightly adverse conditions. 
LENGTH OF FLOWERING PERIOD. 
In addition to flowering regularly , even when climatic conditions 
are somewhat unfavorable, another characteristic is important in 
connection with flowering, i. e., the length of time during which a tree 
remains in bloom. This varies greatly in different varieties. Some 
will develop all their flowers within 10 days from the opening of the 
first buds; other varieties, such as the Sandersha and the Julie, keep 
on developing new panicles of flowers throughout several weeks, or 
even months, and in 1915 there was not a single day between the 
middle of January and the latter part of May on which flowers could 
