Vanilla culture as practiced in the Seychelles Islands

A fair crop should average about 100 cured pods to the pound.

The following crops, produced on one estate during the last five years, will serve to show how uncertain are the returns from vanilla growing here:

Expenses for labor during these years would be about 7,000 rupees (about $1,800 to $2,000). Present price of vanilla (June, 1897) in London market averages about $6 (25s.) per pound. The currency here is in Indian money—that is, rupees; nominal value of rupee, 1s. to 2s., but the actual value varies with price of silver and at present ranges between 1s. 2d. and 1s. 3d.

The day begins at 6 a. m. and work continues until 5 p. m., or to 4 p. m. on some properties; 11 to 12 is breakfast time. Rough work is quickest got through by giving “tasks,” when the negroes become energetic.

Ordinary estate laborers are paid 12 rupees ($3.40) per month; women for crop curing, etc., are paid 9 rupees ($2.60) per month; women and children for flower fecundating, one-fourth rupee (7 cents) per day, the “day” being when work is over, early or late. Vanilla packet tying, 2 rupees (58 cents) per 100 bundles of 50 pods each; vanilla measuring, 2 rupees (58 cents) for same quantity (5,000 pods).

Straight-stemmed palms, if stout, may be used for supporting the vanilla vines. By driving hard-wood pegs into them obliquely at suitable heights the vines can be hung about them as in tree forks.

When long vanilla cuttings are planted near blossoming time, some of them often give flowers soon afterwards. It is best to cut these off, as cropping a vine when newly planted lessens the growing power, and it may hang for many months, but in a regular plantation vines flowering too heavily may be relieved by cutting off one or more of the flowering branches. These may be planted for the one small crop they will give—3 or 4, or up to 10 or 12 pods, according to length and vigor. For this they may be planted close together on low bars and posts, and need well-rotted manure for immediate and abundant nourishment. The best time to plant for this is a few days before the first flowers open; if cut earlier many of the flowers will die back.

Cropping branches may be allowed to flower for two years if they have not missed a season, but never more than that, as the pods they then give are invariably very inferior; the best are on young wood a year or so old at flowering.

Prunings, when not too old, may be set out to rear new plants from. When extending the plantations it is better to plant the shoots from the prunings rather than the prunings themselves, if they are over 2 years old. If flung into jungle, especially among rough ground, rocks, etc., where there is shade and decayed leaves, they grow in a wonderful way without any attention and yield the best of cuttings. When shoots are checked for cropping branches, some of their tendrils occasionally elongate into aerial roots, and should then be cut off, or they will keep the branch full of sap and hinder its flowering.

Short varieties of grass seem rather beneficial in a plantation; cumbersome weeds should be hand pulled, never hoed.

During early crop gathering, before ripe pods are numerous enough to make it worth while using the hot room, they are cured under blankets in the sun, but have to be taken in at the hottest part of the day if sunshine is continuous. This used to be the sole method of curing here, and when used now gives excellent results in favorable weather; but dependence upon the sun is risky, and on the whole the process is cumbersome and costly. Hand trays, that can be piled up on top of each other and carried between two men, are used to spread the blankets on, a fold being below as well as above the pods, and these are supported on low double rails to keep them clear of the ground. In unsettled weather showers have to be watched for, and the trays carried under shelter till the weather again becomes fair.

If there is a pinch for space in the curing house, pods in the hot room may be spread two or three or more deep on the shelves and tumbled up daily, i. e., such of them as are not taken off and re-sorted.

In mulching vanilla roots, and especially at crop time, the plants are much more benefited if the mulch be of two sorts, well-rotted leaf mold being put on first for immediate action, and above it a layer of withered fern or the like, which decays more slowly. When heavy top dressings of quick-decaying manure, grass, etc., have rotted down, they get beaten away by rain, the network of roots becomes exposed, and may with advantage be lightly covered with a thin sprinkling of good soil. Obviously it is better to apply this before the roots become bare or visible. The vanilla roots delight in twisting among stones, large and small, and flattening against their lower surface when not embedded in the soil. When these are of a convenient size and handy in a plantation, the root circuit allowed to each vine may be ringed with them. Vanilla may be grown on trees of thick foliage if these are of a sort that will stand being well pruned annually. Wild cinnamon, which gives dense shade, is sometimes used for this purpose, the branches being nearly all cut off each year about pod-ripening time, which also lets the sun get at the vines for flowering. The contrast between former somewhat dense shade, which has grown since last branch trimming, and the strong light let in by the pruning seems to help toward blossoming.

Under large, high trees, wide apart, where to plant vines on other small-growing wood between them would make the shade too close, vanilla may be fixed on tripods of durable wood, the three stakes being tied with wire crosswise, some little way from their top ends, so as to furnish forks over which the vine creepers may climb. High up in the hills here the plants may be grown in this way without any shade at all, but the plan is only suitable for level grounds or moderate slopes.