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Mr. J. R. Bovell to the Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture. 



Barbados, llth February, 1905. 

 Sir, 



I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter No. 

 B, 392, dated January 30, enclosing a copy of a letter handed you 

 by Mr. Fawcett in reference to the rotation of crops in connection 

 with cotton cultivation in Jamaica, and asking me for my views 

 on the subject. 



As has been pertinently pointed out by various agricultural au- 

 thorities, it is impossible to recommend a rotation that will apply 

 to all districts even in a single country, and therefore it is hardly 

 possible to suggest a rotation that will be equally applicable to 

 all parts of Jamaica. 



On the whole, the suggestions made by Mr. Bourne are, I think, 

 reasonable. If the rotation is a fourth year one, the land the 

 fourth year might be planted in sweet potatoes or yams. 



In Georgia the Director of the Experiment Station recommends 

 where cotton is the principal crop that this should follow corn and 

 peas. The corn is planted, and when it is about half grown, cow 

 peas are then sown between the rows. The corn is reaped and 

 the cow peas are allowed to mature and fed to the animals. The 

 resulting manure is then broadcasted on the land and turned in 

 along with the cow pea stubble. The following year cotton is 

 grown. For the next crop in rotation he recommends oats, and 

 then the rotation commences again. In each case the crop is care- 

 fully fertilized. 



With regard to Jamaica, personally I should be inclined to 

 recommend cotton for the first year's crop, yams or sweet potatoes 

 for the second, and Indian corn and cow peas for the third, each 

 crop to be suitably manured. 



For instance, a yield of say 1,000 lb. of seed cotton per acre, 

 i.e. 300lb. of lint and 700lb. of seed, would remove from the 

 land per acre 25lb. of nitrogen I2lb. of phosphoric anhy- 

 dride and 131b. of potash A crop of six tons of sweet 

 potatoes would remove about 30lb. of nitrogen, 13 to I4lb. of 

 phosphoric anhydride and about 651b. of potash per acre. A 

 crop of Indian corn yielding about 29 bushels of corn per acre of 

 70lb. per bushel, would remove in round numbers 24lb. of nitro- 

 gen, 8Mb. of phosphoric anhydride and 3llb. of potash. A crop 

 of black eye cow peas, weighing say 2 tons per acre, would sup- 

 ply about 361b. of nitrogen, 22lb. of phosphoric anhydride and 

 50lb. of potash. In this case the nitrogen would be obtained 

 principally from the atmosphere, the phosphoric anhydride and 

 potash principally from the sub-soil. As the black eye peas 

 would fix a great deal of nitrogen from the atmosphere, which 

 would be valuable, I should apply a small quantity of farmyard 

 manure to the cotton, supplementing it with phosphoric anhydride 

 ■and potash, and to the sweet potato and yam crops I should apply 

 farmyard manure, supplemented by potash. A ton of good farm- 



