October i, 1884. J 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



3o7 



AGKIOULTUKE ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 

 (Special Letter.) 



Pabis, August 9th. 

 The harvest may be considered as terminated in Prance. 

 Wheat will be an excellent crop, despite the run of trop- 

 ical weather tor the grain. Oats and barley will suffer a 

 little, except on the sea-coast or in humid situations. Green 

 crops can yet pull up. As for forage, it will be defective. 

 But this prospect has been anticipated by maize sowings 

 for ensilage. A farmer then has only himself to blame if he 

 be caught like the foolish virgins with no oil in his lamp. 

 The summer has been very warm and dry, but on the 

 whole cannot be described as drought. And this leads me 

 to the subject of green manuring, which is steadily making 

 way in the warm zones of France, and on light soils thus 

 resenting all the conditions of success. A plant which 

 borrows from the soil to grow, repays, when ploughed in, 

 capital and interest in dying and decomposing on the spot. 

 This is the reason why lands are laid down in grass to 

 grow rich. The organic manure that we bury in the soil 

 contains soluble and insoluble matters, the latter predomin- 

 ating. The first can serve to immediately feed the plant 

 and be assimilated ; but for the second, they must undergo 

 fermentation to dissolve their parts or elements, and so 

 give place to the production of new soluble compounds and 

 gases. No food can reach the plant except in a state of 

 extreme division, as the absorbing pores of the little roots 

 are so delicately fine as to take up liquids or gases. 



It is under the triple influence of heat, air and humidity 

 that the decomposition of organic matter takes place in 

 the soil. Green or vegetable are evidently cold manures. 

 Their action is slow and their decomposition difficult: they 

 contain too small a quantity of saline matters, or saline 

 matters of an insoluble character, or they may be of a 

 too aqueous nature. The character of the soil has a good 

 deal to do with respect to the action of vegetable manures;, 

 In sandy soils the decomposition is more rapid, because 

 the air and the agents of decay have freer access, while, 

 in the case of clays, decomposition proceeds more slowly, 

 as their tenacity excludes air and heat. The humus in a 

 clay soil is hastened in its decay by tillage, which opens 

 it to the influences of the atmosphere. For similar reason, 

 if a sandy soil be tilled too frequently, the manures be- 

 come rapidly soluble and volatilize in the air before the 

 plant can profitably utilize them. 



The ploughing-down of green crops before arriving at 

 maturity, is, perhaps, the earliest form of manuring land, 

 and may be aiso the last. It is a precious auxiliary in 

 Localities where roads do not exist for carting farmyard 

 manure, or are impracticable, as on mountain slopes. Rape, 

 aftermaths, lupins, buckwheat, rye, beans and turnips are 

 the plants chietly employed in green manuring. The Ger- 

 mans, and they are right, patronize two, a mixture, as 

 turnips and spurry. The more rapidly such plants grow 

 and develop plenty of leaves the better. Before being 

 ploughed iu, they are rolled or mown. When in flower is 

 the best time to utilize such plants; they are richer too 

 in alkalies, as Dr. Sacc points out, that is the period 

 selected by fabricants of vegetable ashes for cutting. In 

 Belgium, the weeds of the cereals are cut in spring and 

 carted to land prepared for potatoes; drills are opened 

 four inches deep, the seed dropped and the green weeds 

 spread over it, the whole being covered with the hoe. 

 This manuring does not tell on any subsequent crops. 



In Bretagne and the north-west of France rushes and 

 heather are employed; these are generally strewn first on 

 a road to be bruised by the traffic. In the Upper Pyrenees 

 lupin is sown in autumn, and in May, when in flower, is 

 ploughed in; this forms an excellent preparation for maize. 

 In Saru-et-Gaioune sainfoin is sown iu the vineyards and 

 ploughed down ; on light soils vetches and buckwheat are 

 in favour, and seems to be preferred of late on the calc- 

 areous lauds of Champagne. The Prussian farmers prefer 

 yellow lupin, the Belgians learn to spurry and adopt the 

 excellent plan of spreading a little farmyard manure and 

 covering both simultaneously. In the Luxembourg the 

 slnj.es of Ereze have b'^en made arable by green manur- 

 ings five years in succession. At best, ploughing down 

 green plants can be only half-manuring. The plan possesses 

 the undoubted advantage of maintaining humidity in the 

 soil, and when the latter is of a calcareous, sandy, granitic 



or schistose character, such is not to be overlooked. Green 

 manuring never affects the flavour of products nor removes 

 anything from their delicacy. 



Beet pulp obtained by the diffusion process of sugar 

 extraction contains only 5 per cent of dry matter; mechan- 

 ical pressure can augment this to 15 per cent. Impossible 

 to exceed the latter figure, as the water is retained in 

 the cellulose membrane other than in a mechanical form. 

 Professor Maercker, by adding a half per cent of a sol- 

 ution of lime, and then pressing the pulp, has obtained 

 35 per cent of dry matter. The lime does not affect either 

 the animals or the pulp. The importance of this discovery 

 is very important in the ensilaging of beet pulp. 



A German naturalist draws attention to the ract, that 

 all poultry kept in yards will, if of a dark or sombre plum- 

 age, be better layers than those of bright colour. Black 

 absorbs more heat and maintains greater vital warmth. 

 White geese and ducks are not reputed good layers. 



M. Boitel, who has devoted much attention to pasture- 

 lands, asserts we ought to study to ameliorate the varieties 

 of grasses peculiar to a locality rather than to the intro- 

 duction of foreign kinds. The Perche meadows thus pre- 

 pared surpass all others. 



JAMAICA, ITS ORCHIDS, &c. 



One of the principal drives across the island of Jamaica 

 is by the Bog Walk, and starts from Spanish Town, the 

 ancient capital of the island, to St. Ann's Bay on the north 

 side. Three-quarters of an hour in a train takes one from 

 Kingston to Spanish Town where one finds a post-orhce 

 omnibus drawn by three mules abreast to take one to St. 

 Ann's Bay, a distance of 48 miles. There are three changes 

 of mules on the way and the trap is pretty comfortable. 

 The fences for the first five miles are made entirely of 

 Pinguins (Bromelia Pinguiu), and are absolutely impene- 

 trable to the most enthusiastic Orchid hunter, though the 

 bright flowers of Broughtonia sanguinea are to be seen 

 everywhere on the trees; then one comes to the beautiful 

 Bog AValk, which is to be seen in perfection under a full 

 moou, with a Sambo girl whispering its praises in one's 

 ear. It is needless to say that I did not see it in per- 

 fection, but I saw it under the full rays of a bright sun 

 tempered by a nice sea breeze. A witty governor of Jam- 

 aica about thirty years ago summed up tile three delicacies 

 of the island as being the black crab, the mountain mullet, 

 and the Sambo girl. Two of these I can answer for, but 

 the third and last remains inexperienced. The river flows 

 swiftly close by the side of the road, its waters clear as 

 crystal ami the mountain mullet darting about. One crosses 

 the stream by bridges which, when the river is high, are 

 very often uncrossable. The tropical vegetation on either 

 side of the road is magnificent, and on every spare space 

 of soil now is planted the Banana. 



This pass continues for about five miles, and the road 

 ascends to the top of the backbone of the island. The 

 stone walls which take the place of the Pinguins for hedges 

 are covered with Epidendrums iragrans and cochleatum. 

 They grow everywhere on the banks of the walls, on the 

 walls, and on the trees, and intermixed is a small Ophrys 

 with pretty spikes of purple flowers. Phaius grandifolius 

 or Bletia Tankervillia? is also very common, and is gener- 

 ally distributed over the island, though I cannot under- 

 stand how it came here, as it is a native of Hongkong. 

 After St. Ann's Bay the Orchids ceased and I could not 

 find one of any tribe in a month's stay on the north side 

 of the island. At the King's House, the residence of the 

 Governor, there is a nice collection of Orchids under cult- 

 ivation. Dendrobium Pierardi latifolium has stems full 7 

 feet long, and one mass of bloom ; Dendrobiums nobile and 

 tortile are also doing niceh, but the masses of Oncidium 

 ampliatum majus surpass anything that I have seen in this 

 country. Amongst others Oucidiums flexuosuiu, sphacel- 

 atum, altissimum, Papilio, andKrameri; Oattleyas Mossise, 

 Skinneri.and Trianse; Aerides odoratum, Epidendrum fragr- 

 ans and prismatocarpum ; Gongoras in quantities, and 

 Mormodes and several Zygopetalums, were all doing well, 

 but curious to relate, there was not in the island, that I 

 saw, a healthy plant of Peristeria elata ; although it comes 

 from the mainland so near, and is planted under the same 

 natural circumstances as it grows under at home, yet it 

 does not thrive in Jamaica. 



