out/' and forty-eight hours of submersion is generally sufficient to destroy 

 young seedlings. 



To effect a successful result plantings should be made toward the 

 latter end of the rainy monsoon, when long-continued storms have abated 

 and there are only enough occasional showers to keep the young plants in 

 good growth. This period has the further advantage of coming toward 

 the cooler season of the year (October and November), when conditions 

 are more favorable to seed germination than in the hotter months. 



It is of record that excessive, even inundating, rains have fallen in 

 December, but such instances are abnormal. 1 If they occur, however, 

 unless the plants are well advanced they may necessitate reseeding. On 

 the western coasts alfalfa may be grown for both cutting and pasture, as 

 the weather in the five months (January to May, inclusive) is well 

 adapted for curing the hay. On the eastern coasts the more equable distri- 

 bution of rains, the absence of a long, well-defined dry season, and the 

 greater relative humidity would impair the process of hay curing and 

 make the value of alfalfa problematical except as a pasture crop. 



Teosinte (Euchlaena luxurians). Teosinte, so far grown only as a dry- 

 season crop and without irrigation, in two months from planting has run 

 rapidly to seed and maturity. Portions cut prior to this time furnished 

 a sweet, nutritious, and easily cured fodder, and subsequent irrigation has 

 developed a strong aftermath now ready for a second cutting. While 

 there has been no opportunity to observe its behavior during the wet sea- 

 son, it is probable that upon well-drained lands it will prove a most pro- 

 ductive forage crop of great economic value. 



Sulla (Hedysarum coronarium.) Our preliminary tests indicate that 

 sulla has less drought-resistance force than alfalfa. So far its trial has 

 been restricted to light sandy soils not susceptible of irrigation and sub- 

 ject to a drought whose prolongation has been exceeded only once during 

 the thirty-seven years of official meteorological records of the Archipelago. 



SOIL-RENOVATION PLANTS. 



A number of field or forage pulses are briefly reviewed under this 

 heading, as most of the trials were made upon lands long cropped to 

 general uses and without return of fertilizers of any kind, and the pre- 

 liminary purpose of the plantings was to determine their relative adapta- 

 bility to the country and their soil-renovating values. 



No soil inoculations were made. 



The kinds tried have been Glycine hispida (soy bean), Dolichos chinen- 

 sis (cowpea), Dolichos multiflorus (velvet bean), and Lupinus varius 

 (blue lupine). 



All were grown as dry-season crops, drill sown, well cultivated, but 

 given no irrigation. 



1 The average December rainfall at Manila is only 58.1 m.m. 



