CULTIVATION OF SUGAR CANE. 15 



gin land, or land that is maintained in rotation, should be profitably 

 handled for the second, or even a third year. The rational method of 

 treating the plantation destined to be carried over a second season as 

 stubble cane would be as follows: In the process of harvesting, the soil 

 will be more or less compacted by the trampling of the cane cutters, by 

 the cleaners, and by the carabao used in hauling away the crop. A 

 thorough and deep plowing is, therefore, once more necessary, and to this 

 must be added a complete forking over of the land in the stubble row 

 itself. This may be effected by hand, although there is a machine now 

 in common use, known as a "stubble digger/' which has a revolving, cul- 

 tivator-toothed attachment that works up the soil effectively and with 

 remarkable speed directly in the row, and with a little care, rarely tears 

 out a stubble root. From this point on, the manurial treatment and culti- 

 vation of a stubble crop is a practical repetition of that given to the seed 

 cane crop. This, in fact, would be the outline indicated for continuous 

 succession of crops were it not for the difficulties that confront the Phil- 

 ippine planter in the procurement of complete fertilizers and which 

 imperatively call for a crop rotation, every third year, if he would pre- 

 serve the maximum sugar yield for an indefinite time. 



There is no reason why the third or rotation year should be operated 

 at a loss, or be given up wholly to soil recuperation. The method prac- 

 ticed in Mauritius, Eeunion, and most of the French colonies, would 

 doubtless be successful and profitable here. The third year the same 

 stubble is grubbed out, the land laid down as usual, and planted to corn. 

 When this has made fair growth and begins to "tassel" out, the ground is 

 sown broadcast to vetches, cowpeas, or some other quick leguminous soil- 

 ing crop. A fair to good crop of corn is usually secured and the legu- 

 minous forage is pastured down till the season comes for plowing it under 

 and reseeding the land to cane. This pasturing can only be done without 

 injury during the dry season, and the farmer who turns carabao in to 

 pasture in wet cane lands is inflicting incalculable mischief that will 

 take years of reparative treatment to overcome. 



DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 



There are two subjects pertinent to the matter under consideration, 

 that will be made the subject of future bulletins, and that can only be 

 briefly touched upon in this paper. They are drainage and irrigation. 

 The former is indispensable to attaining a maximum of success upon the 

 littoral lowlands of these Islands, and ultimately a comprehensive system 

 of drains will control every well-equipped and well-managed plantation 

 in the Archipelago. The evil effects of stagnant water have been already 

 pointed out, and the indispensable necessity of deep, broad, middle ditches 

 and laterals, for the rapid diversion of storm waters, has been insisted on 

 elsewhere. These middles and laterals, however, are but makeshifts 

 offered for the immediate amelioration of water-logged cane fields until 



