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Agriculture ; they allowed their trees to grow as they might, and did 

 not manure them, with the result that the trees have deteriorated 

 very considerably. The manure that is found most useful in regord 

 to cocoa cultivation is exactly the same that is found most useful in 

 cane, and indeed in almost any, cultivation, that is farmyard manure. 

 There can he no better manure, not only from its chemical con- 

 stituents, hut also its mechanical effects : it improves the soil whilst 

 it provides food for the trees. But where you have estates far in the 

 interior or on steep hillsides, and with a few animals, it is almost im- 

 possible to obtain sufficient farmyard manure, and in such instance- 

 it is necessary that artificial manure should be used. Hence the 

 Dominica estates used basic slag, which contains phosphates and 

 some free lime, and nitrogenous manures in the form of nitrate of 

 soda or sulphate of ammonia. But in regard to nitrogenous manures 

 it must be remembered that in Dominica, St. Lucia and other such 

 Islands an immense quantity can be got in the forest lands by using dead 

 leaves, lopped shrubs, and grass as a mulch for trees, and afterwards 

 by forking this decayed vegetation into the soil. There is also a loss 

 of* nitrogen attendant on the cultivation of land in the tropics, and it 

 must be restored by the use of farmyard manure, by green di'essing. 

 or in some other Avay. Mr. Hudson recommends keeping a cocoa 

 plantation thoroughly cleared of weeds. That is opening up the 

 question brought before the last Conference by Dr. Watts who ad- 

 vised that in cocoa and similar cultivations the lands should not be 

 kept entirely free of weeds, but that the weeds should be allowed to 

 grow for a time and then cut down ; so that the cultivation would 

 practically get a green dressing. That is the system that has been 

 universally adopted in Dominica for many years, and it would appear 

 to me to be the one best suited to local conditions. There is a 

 matter which I omitted to allude to and which may be regarded as 

 one of the main causes of the small crops now got from peasant 

 holdings. In removing the pod from a cocoa tree it is necessary 

 that a portion of the stem attached should be left on the tree, but 

 the ignorant peasant, instead of cutting the pod, wrings it off, with 

 the result that the little bud at the end of the stem which will supply 

 the future pod is torn off, so that in time the bearing portions of the 

 stem are materially reduced in number. This is a matter to which 

 Agricultural Instructors in Dominica and other islands should call 

 the attention of peasant proprietors. 



The Rev. Dr. Morton (Trinidad) : I go about among many peasant 

 proprietors in Trinidad, and I know that the teaching of the botanist, 

 the chemist, and the analyst has had a great effect upon them in the 

 matter of cultivating their land. One matter referred to by Dr. 

 Nicholls is of great importance to them, and that is the application 

 of manures. They should be urged to use the natural manures which 

 they can get without laying out money. Sometimes they have no 

 money. The names of artificial manures are all new to them, but 

 they know pen manure : and some of them from Barbados know the 

 value of it, and the distinction made between pen manure that has 

 been kept covered or been trampled, and pen manure that has been 

 exposed to the sun or washed out by rain. We see in our villages to- 

 day, as the result of cane-farming, the peasant proprietor's cart going 

 out every morning half-loaded with manure, to be returned to the 



