A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



LIBRARY 

 "EW YOR( 



fSOTANIC^, 



Vol. VIII. No. 186. 



BARBADOS, .JUNE 12, 1909. 



Price Id. 



Treatnjent of Soils in ' Orcluird ' 



Cultivation in the 



West Indies. 



UllING the past ten years the questiori as 

 to the best method of treatment of soils 

 planted with permanent crops as cacao, 

 limes, rubber, etc., has received considerable attention, 

 both in the West Indies and in Eastern tropical 

 colonies, as Ceylon and the Malay States, with tlie 



result that oidi-r ideas on the subject have been a good 

 deal revised. 



In starting cultivations in the tropics, the earlier 

 planters were naturally much influenced by the methods 

 of agriculture practised in such countries as England, 

 where clean weeding was a primary article of faith, 

 and good evidence of careful farming. The fact that 

 the conditions of climate which prevail in the two parts 

 of the world differ so widely as to render it unlikely 

 that methods applicable in northern countries could be 

 adopted without considerable modification in the 

 tropics was evidently not taken into sutiicient considera- 

 tion. Over and above this there are the important 

 diti'erences which arise from the methods employed in 

 arable cultivations, and those adopted in orchard work. 

 The older (European) ideas of agriculturists were largely 

 based on arable work, and with pioneering effort there 

 was a tendency to carry these ideas into the tropics 

 with insufficient modifications. 



The result was that the practice of keeping land 

 between the rows cif crop plants free from weeds, when 

 once started, became an established custom, and came 

 to be regarded as a necessary part of tropical ctdtivation. 



At the Agricidtural Conference of 1901. this 

 matter was brought forward for discussion by 

 Dr. FraTicis Watts, in a paper entitled ' The Treatment 

 of Soils in " Orchard " Cultivation in the Tropics '(see 

 WeM Iiiilimi BuUefiii, Vol. II, p. 9(i). In this paper,^ 

 the economy of effoi'ts made to keep the soil beneath 

 such permanent crops as limes, cacao, oranges, etc., 

 free from weeds was questioned, and the good effect on 

 the tilth of the land which is brought about as the 

 result of allowing the weeds to grow to a certain height, 

 then cutlassing them down, and spreading them as 



