A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XV. No. 36(1. 



BARBADOS. FEBKUAEY 12, 1916. 



Price Id. 



CONTENTS. 



The Measurement of Tilth. 



^3v\ "T^'O produce and maintain a good tilth is one 

 (^ ^!iot' the principal objectives in good farming, 

 ^^LaJj^ and has always been so since men first 

 turned their attention to the cultivation of land. The 

 earlier English agriculturists were fully alive to its 

 importance, for Jethro Tu\[ — the inventor of the 

 drilling machine, and founder of the principles of dry 

 farming — wrote, about the year 1 700: 'the finer the 

 land is made by tillage the richer will it become, and 

 the more plants will it maintain' — an "observation as 

 true to-day as it was 200 years ago. 



Hence, as might be expected, a large amount of 

 experience has accumulated, which forms the basis on 

 which the modern farmer exercises his ability. To 

 produce a fine tilth, especially under the everchanging 

 climatic conditions of England, requires the exercise 

 of the soundest judgment. It is an art rather than 

 a science, and calls for instinct rather than for 

 reason. One roll at the wrong time will ruin a seed 

 bed, and inappropriate ploughing may spoil a whole 

 field. It is in connexion with these matters that^the 

 purely scientifically trained man di.scovers his in- 

 feriority. 



On the other hand, there is weakness on the far- 

 mer's side, which lies in his inability to understand 

 exactly the effects he produces, and to express vary- 

 ing states of tilth with clearness and precision. 



Tilth may be defined as the broken uprstate of 

 the surface soil resulting from cultivation. Good tilth 

 is closely connected \»ith fineness and friability. 

 Naturally the nature of the soil itself, quite apart from 

 skill in husbandry, will limit the degree of excellence 

 obtainable. This is well seen in the West Indies, where 

 in St. Kitts, for example, the volcanic soil posse.sses 

 a natural tilth of its own, and scarcely needs any skill 

 to produce a fine surface: while in the neighbouring 

 island of Nevis, and in Antigtia also, there are clayey 

 tracts of soil which are most unamenable to cultivation, 

 and in times of drought are literally unworkable, 

 except with dynamite. 



It must not be thought, however, that good tilth is 

 synonymous with a loose texture. A pure sand can never 

 be in good tilth. For one thing the presence of organic 

 matter is essential for the existence of good tilth, and 



