144 



superphosphate is relatively expensive, and although it gives better results, the 

 gain is not in proportion to the higher price at which it can be obtained. 



If phosphatic manures were used as widely in the colony as they ought to be, 

 and profitably could be used, very little bone superphosphate would in all proba- 

 bility be manufactured as the demand for bone dust for lands for which it was 

 the most suitable would more than meet the supply. Very little mineral super- 

 phosphate has yet been used in the colony, and consequently it is much more 

 expensive than it would become were it used more extensively, and imported in 

 large shipments. 



Bones are often applied to crops which occupy the land for a number of 

 years, and are generally agreed better for such than superphosphate. For 

 example, lucerne benefits much from heavy dressings of bone dust, say 6 cwt. 

 applied during the winter months, when the lucerne is being cultivated. Pasture 

 lands benefits much also from a good dressing, though it is very doubtful whether 

 pasture, even the best, could be profitably dressed with bone dust in this colony, 

 where live stock fetch prices so exceedingly low, and dairy produce is relatively 

 cheap. 



Vines and hops also are generally dressed with bones in preference to super- 

 phosphate. 



How TO USE Bone Dust. 



Wheat-crops.— V^'Yiere bone dust is used for a wheat-crop, seeing it becomes 

 so slowly available, the practice of applying it in the spring, when the fallow is 

 having its first scarifying is a good one. Let the bone dust be distributed in 

 front of the scarifier. It is then well worked into the land during the successive 

 workings through the summer and autumn, and in addition to having indirectly 

 benefited the land by its decomposition will be more ready to tell on the crop 

 sown over it. For this purpose a dressing of 2| cwt. to 3 cwt. will be sufficient 

 per acre. Another good practice is to dress the land that is to carry a fallow 

 crop such as sorghum, to be fed down, with a similar dressing of bone dust. The 

 summer crop will benefit somewhat, though not so much as the succeeding wheat- 

 crop ; and as the crop will have been fed down, little of the manurial value of 

 the bone dust will be lost, while much will be available for the winter crop. 



For hay it will be found good practice to apply, say, 60 to 90 lbs. of nitrate 

 of soda or sulphate of ammonia when the wheat is sown, in addition to the bone 

 dust applied in spring as above. 



On heavy, stifif wheat lands it should be mentioned bone dust takes so 

 exceedingly long to decompose and become soluble that superphosphate is ever 

 found better. Again, in our drier districts if manure be used at all the phosphate 

 should be applied as superphosphate, but the general opinion that in the drier 

 districts, where the average rainfall is under 14 inches or thereabout, it is more 

 profitable to crop the land at longer intervals than to use manure and crop fre- 

 quently is no doubt well justified. In the hills districts and in districts with a 

 better rainfall the case is different, and bone dust or superphosphate, with or 

 without nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia, should certainly have a thorough 

 trial. 



On farms where hay is largely grown there is no question but that very 

 extensive artificial manuring will prove profitable, but to get immediate returns 

 it will generally be found that superphosphate is better than bone dust as the 

 phosphatic element in the manure mixture. 



179. -THE INTRODUCTION OP AN INTERESTING PALM. 



LoDoicEA Sechellarum, Lodd. 



''Sea coconut," "Double coconut," " Coco-de-mer." 

 It bad long been desired to introduce this interesting plant into 

 the Trinidad Gardens, biit initil the present year it had not been 

 found practicable to do so. On my visit to the Demerara Gardens in 

 1894, I found that Mr. Jenman had successfully introduced growing 

 nuts ; and that these had germinated in due course, and had produced 



