The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 6
Jamaica.—
Jamaica.—
"My chief care at the Cinchona plantation is the establishment of large open air nurseries instead of the glass propagating houses which I found here. I sow the seed under thatched sheds and prick out the plants into beds shaded by ferns. This is a simple inexpensive style which is universally adopted in Ceylon, but unknown here. I fear that the system of glass houses and propagating and hardening frames has done much to frighten people from trying Cinchona here, and besides [the Government plantations] have never been able to distribute more than a few hundred plants, as they had not enough for their own use. In a few months, by next planting season, I shall have 80,000 which I can conveniently spare, and by the end of the year, possibly 500,000."
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"Unless the trees are planted thickly enough to 'bower' the ground, as the planters say, the cost of weeding is nearly 4l. per acre per annum. By the third year the trees, if well planted and well supplied, ought to cover the ground and save all subsequent weeding."