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branches. A broadly spread fork is most desirable. One with a 
narrow crotch will be likely to pinch the vine run through it as 
the limbs increase in size, unless a stone has been placed in the 
crotch below the vine. All prunings should be cut up and spread 
around the base of the vines as a mulch. 
The value of a leaf mulch has been shown already in the much 
greater rapidity of vanilla root growth in rotting leaves than in soil. 
The coarse, easily cut roots feeding at or very near the surface make 
any cultivation out of the question. What can be done is to provide 
the vines with plenty of humus-forming materials, such as forest 
sweepings, cane trash, or old well-rotted strawy manure, in addition 
to the prunings from the shade trees. Where such material is not 
abundant, plantings of a Stizolobium or other cover crop may be 
made nearby and the growth cut and carried into the vanillery. 
Weeds should never be hoed near the plants, but should be pulled 
up by hand. Hoes and machetes should be used only on the land 
which is midway between the plants and thus not occupied by the 
vanilla roots. 
The rapid growth of the vines, the necessity of keeping them with- 
in easy reach for pollination of the blossoms, and their succulent and 
rather brittle nature all combine to demand constant attention from 
the planter. Several different systems of pruning or training the 
vines are being tested, but as yet only rather general recommenda- 
tions can be given. A vigorously growing runner will lengthen 2 to 
2\ feet in a month's time. For easy handling of the new growth, 
the vines should be gone over every six or eight weeks. If this is 
done only at long intervals, the runners climb high in the trees and 
are difficult to get down and easily damaged in the process, as a new 
bend in a heavy vine is apt to cause it to snap in two. 
The essential point is to keep the vine always within easy reach. 
After ascending to a height of 5 or 6 feet, it should be bent over a 
branch and allowed to hang down until it reaches almost to the 
ground. A young vine, or one which has not some growth through 
all the well-located forks of the tree, should be allowed after it has 
reached almost to the ground to reascend the support. To accom- 
plish this, the runner should be tied to the support at about 6 inches 
above the ground. Raffia is excellent for tying the vine. Other 
pendent vines may have their tips pinched off at about this same 
distance above the ground. Just what proportion of the runners 
should be allowed to reascend the support and what proportion 
should be pinched back before reaching the ground has not been de- 
termined. Those whose further elongation has been stopped offer 
an advantage not possessed by the others in that after they have 
fruited the then useless portion of vine may be cut away without 
damaging the rest. 
