105 



Imperial Commissioner) a proper rotation of crops, embracing 

 cotton, suitable for the "West Indies, so that the cotton grower 

 need not think himself dependent upon cotton ratooning, and 

 I am to offer the following suggestions (subject to your better 

 knowledge) on the matter. 



2. Taking cotton as the crop to be cultivated during the first 

 year, the land, after being thoroughly cleaned and all weeds and 

 vegetation thereon burned or buried, should be ploughed with a 

 deep soil plough to a depth of some five to eight inches. Where 

 the locality is a dry one, the furrows should be run across the 

 natural fall of the land. 



3. After ploughing and cleaning the land it should be laid out 

 in ridges and furrows, the tops of the ridges being about six 

 inches higher than the bottom of the furrows. The cotton should 

 be sown in the bottom of the furrows, and as it grows up the 

 earth of the ridges should from time to time be removed to its 

 stem by a hoe, so that when the cotton matures it will appear to 

 be growing out of the top of a ridge. 



4. Second year. When the cotton has all been cleared away, 

 a comparatively shallow ploughing will suffice to prepare the soil 

 for the second year's crop, which should be some cereal, — maize 

 for choice. 



5. The usual objection to maize is that it is easily destroyed by- 

 weevils after harvest ; this evil may be avoided either by selling 

 early or by kiln-drying the corn. Several large cotton growers 

 might combine for the purchase of a kiln. 



6. Third year. After a light ploughing the land might be 

 sown with some leguminous plant, such as beans, peas, clover, al- 

 falfa, lucerne, lupines, rabi, vetches, rovithi or eleusine Levakana. 

 The last grows well in tropical climates and affords seed useful 

 for food, but rabi supplies a valuable food for cattle, requires very 

 little care or cultivation, and is to be preferred on that account. 



7. Fourth year. Unless you have something valuable to sug- 

 gest in the fourth year, the land might be allowed to lie fallow, 

 to be followed by cotton again in the fifth year. 



I have, etc., 

 H. Clarence Bourne, Colonial Secretary. 



The Commissioner of the Imperial Department of Agriculture to the Di- 

 rector of Public Gardens and Plantations, Jamaica. 



Copy. 



Barbados, February 13, 1905. 



Sir, 

 With reference to the letter from the Colonial Secretary of Ja- 

 maica, No. 11783/12679, dated December i6th last, communicated 

 to me at the recent Conference at Trinidad, I would mention that 

 the rotation of crops for cotton adopted in the Sea Islands is 

 described in the "West Indian Bulletin" Vol. IV. pp, 294-295. 

 This rotation has apparently not been taken into consideration in 



