May I, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



877 



CEYLON FIBRES. 

 The receipt ofj Di-. Trimen's letter on page 886, 

 recalls our omission to deal with several samples 

 and a good deal of information placed at our disposal in 

 reference to local fibre-yielding plants of marketable 

 value. This we must do in an early issue. Meantime we 

 may say that Mr. C. Shaud, who made experiments 

 in the preparation of fibre from the Sanseviera zei/Umka, 

 produced a sample which was valued at £25 per 

 ton ; but he came to the conclusion that as the 

 yield of fibre was only equal to two per cent, there 

 was not sufficient margin for profit unless some very 

 cheap means of separation were made available. It 

 is a question however, as Dr. Trimen points out, 

 whether the preparation of fibre from this plant, 

 could not be made a native industry of some im- 

 portance to people who have more time on their 

 hands than they can utilize profitably. The revenue 

 officers of C4overnment should interest themselves in 

 the matter. 



FARMYARD AND ARTIFICIAL MANURES. 



Of the value of farmyard manure, especially if com- 

 posed of the droppings of animals fed on highly 

 niti'ogenous substances and well protected from the 

 weather, there never was any doubt, we suppose, 

 amongst either merely practical or scientific farmers. 

 The Rothamstead experiments of Sir .J. B. Lawes, 

 indeed, resulted in proving that the beneficial effects 

 of a liberal application of good farmyard dung could 

 be traced up to a period of nearly a quarter of a 

 century after the date of application. So much has 

 farmyard manure been valued in English farming that 

 the reserve of a portion of each farm for grazing 

 purposes and the growth of hay has a recognized 

 practice in orthodox agiiculture as well as the cultiv- 

 ation of turnips and other roots. The feeding and 

 the sale of stock, in truth, received in many cases 

 as much attention as the gi'owth of com crops ; '_for 

 in a meat-eating country like England, and so long 

 as cattle-disease was absent, the feeding and sale of 

 surplus stock paid well. So ,much importance, indeed, 

 was attached to farmyard manure by proprietors of 

 laud, that it was, and we suppose is, an almost in- 

 variable condition in leases to tenants that all straw 

 is to be eaten or used on the farm : none sold away 

 from it. Farmers suffered specially when epizootics 

 appeared ; and the chronic objection to farmyard 

 manure was its enormous bulk and the proportionate 

 co.st of application. Here, in Ceylon, all the diffic- 

 ulties were aggi-avated. Tlie mere growth of guinea 

 or swamp grass was very expensive ; oil-cake and 

 imported gram, paddy and cotton seed were still more 

 costly ; cattle were specially liable to disease, and 

 even for fattened cattle and pigs the. market was 

 neither steady nor remunerative. In 1879, therefore, 

 when, with a great Hourish of trumpets, Mr. Crookes, 

 F. R. S., introduced to English readers the plausible 

 and seductive work of the Frenchman, M. (Georges 

 Ville, we, amongst tens of thousands of others, were 

 taken captive by statements which appeared to be 

 tl.e legitimate outcome of carefully conducted ex- 

 periments. It seemed beyond doubt, for instance, 

 tliat certain plants (leri\e<i most of their nitrogen 



directly from the air. But .Sir J. B. Lawes, who 

 has unsparingly unmasked the sophistries of one who 

 111 



is now declared to be neither a practical farmer nor 

 a scientific man, has shewn that M. Ville's conclu- 

 sions were arrived at by taking into account only the 

 nitrogen in the manure applied to the soil with re- 

 ference to a particular crop, while the nitrogen in the 

 arable soU itself, from 10,000 to 12,000 lb. per acre, 

 was entirely ignored ! This is but a specimen of the 

 fallacies which, accorduig to a notice in the Field 

 of Sir J. B. Lawes' articles in the Atjrirnlttiral ikizette, 

 pervade the whole book, and readers who have seen 

 our elaborate review of M. Ville's work, with a sum- 

 mary of his conclusions in favour of artificial manures 

 versus pasturage reserving and stock feeding for farm- 

 yard dung, will correct their impressions accordingly. 

 The sober view of the matter is that farmers in 

 Europe should continue to use farmyard manure and 

 good artificial manures as well, taking special care 

 that the fai'ra manure is rich in fertilizing matter 

 as tlie result of the food supplied to the cattle, and 

 that it is reduced to as portable a form as possible. 

 For us, in Ceylon, the discussion is not of much 

 practical importance at present. When planters are 

 able again to resort to manuring, most of tliem will 

 only be able to add pulp and pruuiugs and ravine 

 stutV to good artificial manures. In a few cases the 

 keeping of cattle may pay even now, there being a 

 near market for surplus stock, and the day may come 

 when stock-keeping and manuring estates with cattle 

 dung (the best and most lasting manure of all) will 

 pay. Meantime, it is well we should know and re- 

 cognize the truth, as stated by so relial'le an au- 

 thority as Sir J. B. Lawes. We copy the article 

 from the Field : — 



AETIFIOIAL MANURES. 



As far back as 1879 a work on Artificial Manm'es ap- 

 peared in this country, written by a French chemist, M. 

 Georges Yille, and translated and edited by Mr. Cookes, 

 F. R. S. Few works on agricultmal matters have caused 

 more interest. The writer gave his opinions with so much 

 confidence — quoting experiments in proof of the conclusions 

 he had arrived at — that the public were very much car- 

 ried away, and disposed to take JM . Ville at his own v^alu- 

 atiou. The work was favom'ably ;(nd largely noticed, and 

 we think that llie Field amongst other papers, called at- 

 tention to the remarkable results .said to. have been ob- 

 tauied by the use of artificials, and also to the statements 

 as to the power of certain plants to obtain supplies , of 

 nitrogen direct from the atmosphere. 



Quite recently Sir J. B. Lawes has published in the 

 pages of the Agricultural Gazette a series of seven articles 

 which will be fomid in the numbers from January 1st 

 1883, in which he subjects M, Ville's statements to a 

 critical examination, and exposes their utter uiu-eliability. 

 The farming public, who are interested in this question, 

 are much beholden to Sir James B. Lawes for ha%<iug 

 detected these fallacies, which as their principal object 

 was to discredit farmyard manure and to exalt the virtues 

 of artificials, and especially of certain receipts which ap- 

 pear at the end of the book, might, if accepted by Eng- 

 fish farmers, have led to great losses. 



Artificial mamu'es, suitable to the particiUar soils and 

 crops, are valuable supplements to farmyard manm-e. But 

 this, as containing all the materials requued in plant food, 

 though perhaps not always in thi; exact proportions most 

 necessary, and being made, as a rule, at much less cost 

 than what we pay for artificials, should be for nine-tenths 

 of us our main resource. Instead of our being led away by 

 a will-o-the-wisp in the form of patent mamne, and so 

 induced to continue the wretchedly wastefid methods of 

 manufacture which still too frequently prevail, wc should 

 be told how we may improve our practice, and how, by 

 making and keeping our manur(' under cover, we may 

 secure a concentrated and portable material, which will 

 if we only have enough of it, render us to some extent 

 independent of artificials. The more we can replace the 

 outl.iy now made in artificial manures, by outlay in feed- 

 uig materials which emich the droppings of animals eat- 

 ing them, the more profitable will be om' operations, be- 



