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To make the first green crop effective as a manure, both lime and 

 potash are essential the former to make available the nitrogen we hope 

 to gather, and the potash in order to secure the largest and quickest 

 growth of the pulse we are to raise for manurial purposes. 



Both these elements are generally in good supply in our cocoanut 

 lands; but, if there is uncertainty upon this point, both should be sup- 

 plied, in some form. Fortunately, the former is cheap and abundant in 

 most parts of the Archipelago, and, when well slaked, may be freely ap- 

 plied with benefit, at the rate of a ton or even more to the hectare. 



In default of the mineral potash salts, the grower must seek unleached 

 wood ashes, either by burning his own unused jungle land to procure 

 them or by purchasing them from the neighbor who has such land to 

 burn over. If located on the littoral, he will carefully collect all the sea- 

 weed that is blown in, although in our tropical waters the huge and 

 abundant marine algae are mostly lacking. Such as are found, however, 

 furnish a not inconsiderable amount of potash, and, in the extremities to 

 which planters remote from commercial centers are driven, no source is 

 too inconsiderable to be overlooked. 



The first green crop selected will be one known to be of tropical origin 

 which, with fair soil conditions, will not fail to give a good yield. He 

 may with safety try any of the native rank-growing beans, or cowpeas, 

 soja, or velvet beans ; or, if these are not procurable, he has at command 

 everywhere an unstinted seed supply of Cajanus indicus, or of Clitorea 

 ternatea, which will as well effect the desired end to wit, a great volume 

 of humus and a new soil supply of nitrogen. It remains for the planter 

 to determine if the crop thus grown is to be plowed under, or if he will 

 use it to still better advantage by partially feeding it, subject, as pre- 

 viously stated, to an honest return to the land of all the manure resulting 

 therefrom. 



He may utilize it in any way, even to selling the resulting seed crop, 

 provided all the remaining brush is turned back to the land and a portion 

 of the money he receives for the seed be reinvested in high-grade potash 

 and phosphatic manures. The plantation should now be in fair condition 

 for a corn crop, and, as a very slight shading is not prejudicial to the 

 young palms, the corn can be planted close enough to the trees, leaving 

 only sufficient space to admit of the free cultivation that both require. 



It must not be forgotten that corn makes the most serious inroads upon 

 our soil fertility of any of the crops in our rotation, and, unless by this 

 time the planter is prepared to feed all the grain produced to fatten swine 

 or cattle, it had better be eliminated from the rotation and peanuts sub- 

 stituted. In addition to this, he must still make good whatever drains 

 the corn will have made upon this element of soil fertility. 



Cropping to corn attacks the cocoanut at a new and vulnerable point, 

 against which the careful grower must make provision. It will be remem- 



