Vol. ill. No. 283. 



THE AGRICULTUEAL NEWS. 



tered in connexion with llie trantpcrt, labour and other 

 |)roblL'ius. Sir William Manning was convinced that cotton- 

 growing had now been firmly established jn Xyasaland, and 

 the industry would develo|) from year to year, more espe- 

 cially when the proposed railway extens.ion had been com- 

 |.>kted. It was reported that the export of cotton from 

 Nyasaland for the year ending September 30, amounted to 

 l,230,6.'?(i lb. valued in Xyasaland at £3»,765, which shows 

 an increased value of £14,894 over the previons year. 



i'i:.\st>.\. The reports as to the crop in Uganda continue 

 satisfactory, and the cotton vrhicli is coming forward is 

 commanding a ready sale at satisfactory prices, although 

 there is a good deal of competition in cott'm-buying and the 

 buying prices have been raised to a level which leaves very 

 little margin of profit. 



The account closes with a financial statement 

 showing that on February (i, the balance to be rai.sed 

 tc complete the authorised capital of the Association, 

 namely I-'idOOOO, was £l.S,9:^:i On November 7, 

 1012, 'it was £22,8(iO and on October 1, 1912, £23,:^:5!l. 



THE WEST INDIAN COTTON-GROWING 



SEASON, 1911-12. 



In consequence of an error in the figure." sent from 

 Antigua, it is necessary to reproduce in corrected form, the 

 following table of West Indian cotton statistics, which 

 appeared in the Agricultimd A'ii'-s, Vol. XIl, p. 22. 



VKST INDIAN COTTON F.XPOKT.'^, IH'AIITEU KNDEIi SEPTEM- 

 liEK 30 1912 



Total 290^ 97,278 * 6,531 8 6 



WE.ST INDIAN COTTON EXPORTS, OCTOBER 1, 1911, 

 TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1912. 



RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON THE 



FERTILITY OF THE SOIL, 



Dr. Eussell has lately been writing on this subject in. 

 Naiiiii (December 26, 19 Ti) and has presented a broad 

 review of the more striking discoveries that have recently 

 been made in diti'ereiit parts of the world. Iteference is 

 made first of all to investigations of the hypothesis that 

 increased fertility of agricultural land in established countries 

 through the use of commercial fertilizers and green manuring 

 is effected at the expense of virgin lands. An inquiry has 

 been instituted by Coventry, in India, lo see if there is any 

 evidence of a progressive decline of fertility there. It ha» 

 been found that the average of productivity may have become 

 lower, but this can be entirely explained by the fact that 

 inferior land has been taken into cultivation because of an 

 extension of agriculture, resulting from the high degree of 

 prosperity that at present prevails. 



It cannot be disputed, however, that there is a con- 

 tinuous transfer of phosphoric acid and potash from the soil 

 to the great centres of population, and the impoverishment 

 of virgin soils necessarily takes place. The productivity is 

 however not affected until the lack of these particular 

 nutrients becomes a limiting factor in crop production. This 

 position has been reached in certain parts of the United- 

 States and the recent w^ork of Professor Wilson and his 

 colleagues at the Wisconsin Experiment Station has shown 

 that continued cropping has caused phosphate exhaustion, 

 that can be remedied by dressings of rock phosphate, whick 

 fortunately is readily obtainable. 



A very remarkable illustration of the other side of the 

 question, namely the increased phosphorus supply to land 

 near cities, is contained in a recent paper by Messrs. Hughes^ 

 and Aladjem, published in Tin At/ricultmal Journal of 

 Egypt. These investigators, during the course of a soil 

 survey, discovered that certain spots of land in the Delta 

 were very much richer in phosphates than usual. Detailed 

 examination revealed the fact that these remarkable areas- 

 constituted the site of an ancient city where a considerable 

 population had existed for a perind of at least four thousand 

 years before the Arab domination. 'The city and its popu- 

 lation have long vanished,' writes Dr llussell, 'but the 

 concentration of phosphoric acid in the soil remains an 

 indelible record of the past.' 



In considering the transference of nitrogen compounds^ 

 it has to be borne in mind that this takes place in the ioxm 

 of a perpetual cycle in which the air takes an important part, 

 and the chemical changes are mainly of a biological nature. 

 The increase of soil nitrogen can be obtained in other ways 

 than by the direct application of nitrogen compounds. 

 Quite recently, the Department of Agriculture for the Leeward 

 Islands has published results tshowing that the addition of 

 molasses tends to increase the activity of nitrogen-fixing 

 organisms like Azotobacter and Clostridium, and in sugar- 

 producing countries this indirect method of manuring may 

 possibly develop info a matter of economic importance. There 

 is also the recent work on the effect of fiowers of sulphur, and 

 of carbonates of calcium and magnesium upon the nitrogen 

 transformations in the soil, which has lately received 

 attention in the A'jricull arnl Ac"'--. 



One of the latest developments in the science of soil 

 fertility is the work of \l. O. E. Davis, in America, on the 

 existence and functions of colloids in the soil. These sub- 

 stances cover the soil particles and exert a very considerable 

 inlluence upon the physical properties of the soil. 



