368 Dr Davy's Jgricultural Discourse, 



the two in one, who will be capable of testing and analysing soils, 

 with opportunities of comparing their produce with their composition, 

 and of instituting experiments on soils artificially compounded, in 

 further proof of the accuracy of his deductions. Such trials, allow 

 me to observe, would be well worthy the attention of, and en- 

 couragement from this and the other Agricultural Societies of Bar- 

 badoes ; and I trust there is a gentleman holding an elevated grade in 

 one of those societies, who, as I believe, he is competent to the inquiry, 

 will be disposed to engage in it, and will find leisure for it, during in- 

 tervals that he is not performing the high function to which he has re- 

 cently been called in your House of Assembly. After what I have said, 

 I need hardly remark, that, at present, it appears to me that conjec- 

 tures only can be offered on the composition of the soil best fitted for 

 the perfection of the sugar cane. From the limited observations I have 

 yet had an opportunity of making, I am disposed to offer it as my 

 opinion, that soils principally calcareous, are the soils in question, 

 such as the chalky and marly, which soils, as regards physical con- 

 dition, possess all the properties most desirable in a soil ; and as 

 regards chemical composition, may be held to be nowise defective, 

 when they contain, besides carbonate of lime and a portion of alu- 

 niine, some magnesia, silica, and the phosphate of lime, and the 

 vegetable alkali, as is commonly the case in the instances of the 

 chalk and marl of this Island, most of them inorganic elements, 

 which are found in the ashes of the cane, and that very generally. 

 I have already adduced an example of what appears to be the ad- 

 mirable fitness of a chalky soil for cane cultivation. I did not spe- 

 cify the exact locality where the cane so well grows without manure, 

 which I ought to have done, to escape perhaps, the censure of hasty 

 generalization. The spot so pointed out to me was in a"part of Welch- 

 man*s Hall Estate, situated below the limitary coral cliff. Other 

 examples might be mentioned of soils of the same kind being emi- 

 nently productive. Is not the lower portion of the Codrington Col- 

 lege estate such an histance, where the soil is an argillaceous calca- 

 reous marl, with a sufficiency of silica, and some phosphate of lime X 

 In Antigua, there are striking examples of it: the most valuable 

 estates of that island have a soil of calcareous marl, with a subsoil of 

 the same, a marl similar in composition to the best in Barbadoes : 

 And such lands, I was informed on the spot, commonly yield three 

 hogsheads of sugar per acre, and occasionally, and not unfrequently 

 more, and require little manure ; and are as fertile now, as when 

 they were first brought into cultivation, some of them more than a 

 century ago. It is true, and deserving of all consideration, that 

 there are other kinds of soils, both in Barbadoes and in Antigua, 

 which, I am inform<id, yield sugar superior to the average, and in 

 fair, although not in large proportional quantity. In these, as far 

 as I have had an opportunity of judging, the same elements exist as 

 in the calcareous soils, although in widely different proportions — 



