The scarcity of propagating material greatly retarded work. By 
the summer of 1912, the original plantings had grown sufficiently 
to furnish short cuttings for a small new planting. In May of that 
year, 19 cuttings of the Mexican Vanilla planifolia were set out. 
To make the material go as far as possible, the average cutting was 
of only 4 or 5 nodes. Subsequent plantings have shown that devel- 
opment from such short cuttings is much slower than from longer 
ones and that these vines were accordingly under an initial disad- 
vantage. Four of these short cuttings had to be replaced in June, 
as they were dead or nearly so. 
Two vines flowered at two years from planting, opening their 
blossoms from April 1 to May 15 and producing five clusters. Two 
pods were allowed to develop from each cluster. The pods when 
mature ranged in length from 5f to 8f inches. 
Before the third-year crop could be produced, one of the 19 plants 
had been almost destroyed by a falling tree and two others were 
removed as diseased or lacking vigor. Fifteen of the remaining 16 
blossomed at three years from planting, the blossoms opening from 
late March to the middle of June. The one which failed to blossom 
had grown better than the average in this planting, measuring 49 
feet of vine in December, 1914. The crop was picked from October 
13 to January 3. It consisted of 1,020 pods produced in 151 clus- 
ters, the pods ranging in length from 3 to 9 inches. Some pods in 
curing molded and could not be used. In April, 973 pods, which 
after curing weighed 5 \ pounds, were sent to a Philadelphia firm 
handling vanilla beans exclusively, which reported on the shipment 
as follows: 
While the flavor is very pungent, being very similar to the Java variety, we believe 
that results from same would prove very satisfactory. * * * Any well-cured 
vanilla, so long as it is of sweet flavor and sound keeping qualities, is always mar- 
ketable. * * * Regarding the vanilla sent us, value of same compares favorably 
with Bourbon or Java vanilla in same grades, or of the vanilla produced in Guade- 
loupe. "We are allowing you $2.50 per pound. 
On the above basis, the value of the crop per vine at 3§ years 
from setting averaged 87.5 cents. These vines were set 9 by 9 feet, 
or at the rate of 537 vines to the acre. Excluding the vine acci- 
dentally demolished, if raised to the acre rate with five-sixths of the 
planting in production, as in this instance, the gross value of the 
crop of vanilla beans would have amounted to nearly $400. 
The 1916 blossoming began in January and continued into June. 
The crop picking was from October 23 to December 26. All 16 of 
the 4-year-old plants blossomed, producing 936 pods in 233 clusters. 
After curing, this amounted to about 8f pounds of cured vanilla 
beans, or an average of more than half a pound per plant. 
