42 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
Raising from Seed . — In 1902, M. Dupont made 
experiments at the Government Botanic Station of 
the Seychelles to raise vanilla from seed in the follow- 
ing manner. Fully ripe pods were allowed to blacken, 
and the seeds when removed were soaked in alcohol for 
twenty-four hours, and shortly after were thoroughly 
washed and planted. The seedlings are reported to 
have grown well. 
Though it is probable that growing vanilla from 
seed as a regular or common thing might be too slow 
a process for the planter, there is a good deal to be 
said for this being occasionally done. Plants which 
like vanilla have been for many generations grown 
continuously from cuttings, are very apt to deteriorate 
and become weak and liable to disease. Nature, it is 
said, abhors perpetual self-fertilisation. And it may 
be said that nature still more abhors perpetual asexual 
reproduction. A fresh strain of vanilla in estates 
would be very desirable. In raising plants from seed 
it would be advantageous to use pollen from a different 
plant for fertilising a flower. 
Pruning . — The old stems should be cut off after 
flowering, even if they still carry buds. The plant 
will replace them with good and strong stems bearing 
more flowers, and probably better fruit than the old 
stems would by the next flowering season. 
Pruning the young stems has been productive of 
good results in some cultivations and a failure in 
others. The opinion of Delteil is, that if a planter 
wishes to get a rapid return from the vanillery, and 
does not intend to keep it going for more than two 
or three years, pruning is suitable. It produces an 
excessive crop of fruit, but always at the expense of 
the plant. 
In cases where the planter has a number of young 
plants and wishes to have a succession of good fruiting 
plants, — one lot ready while the next is coming on, — 
the system of pruning may pay very well. At the first 
flowering of the young stems the ends of the branches 
