eral types of soil in South Florida. It should have a fine future here.

Groff, in his "Lychee and Lungan" quotes a verse by Su Shih, an exiled Chinese poet, written in A.D. 1094:

"Beneath these green mountains where spring rules the year
The arbutus and loquat in season appear;
And feasting on lychee—three hundred a day—
I shouldn't mind staying eternally here."

*The spelling and pronunciation (Lychee) of the common name of Litchi Chinensis is that used by G. W. Groff, who lived more than thirty years in the Lychee district of China, in his book entitled, "The Lychee and the Lungan," which is considered the bible of the Lychee industry. Dr. R. H. Marloth, director of the subtropical experiment station of the Union of South Africa, where the Lychee is making fine progress refers to Groff as the world's leading authority on the Lychee "Lychee" is also the approved spelling of the 1942 volume of "Standardized Plant Names" published by the Joint American Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature. In China where most of the Lychees are produced, the pronunciation is lychee. In India, where some Lychees are produced, the pronunciation is leechee.


From the time of the discovery that plants would grow from seed, man has endeavored to devise means of more rapid propagation. Various methods of rooting of cuttings budding and grafting have been devised, each of benefit to horticulture.

Many centuries ago some smart Chinese gardener, a "green thumber," let us assume, observed the low lying limbs of a tree or other plant rooting through contact with the soil making a new plant, which could be cut off and transplanted.

Sooner or later it dawned on our Chinese horticultural benefactor that if he would take the dirt up to some of the limbs that could not. be pulled down to the ground, tie it on and keep it moist he might be able to propagate more trees. The process finally resulted in what became known as Chinese air-layering which, by refinement of method grew to be a boon to horticulturists.

Although this method of propagating young trees has been employed throughout the world for a great many years it involved considerable expense because of the necessity of keeping the rooting material wet, and many potential young trees were lost because they were not regularly watered. The use of certain plastic wrappers that hold moisture but permit the passage of respiratory gases is the result of successful efforts to overcome this drawback.