CH. VI] TOOLS, TILLAGE, MANURING, CROPPING, ETC. 27 



Whether it gets the manure, however much it may require 

 it, is a question of another kind. Perhaps the majority of 

 tropical natives are unable to afford any manure worth mention. 

 For instance those of the greater part of India use cow dung, 

 which is almost the only available manure, as fuel, and have 

 little else that could be used for this purpose. The slow but 

 certain result is the gradual impoverishment of the soil, for it 

 is rarely that its owner or cultivator can allow it to lie fallow 

 for a time. 



Even in a country like Ceylon, where vegetable matter is 

 cheap and easily obtained, manuring is by no means common 

 among the natives, though in the far north of the island large 

 quantities of green stuff of various kinds are collected for 

 manuring purposes. But on European planting estates a 

 different state of things is evident, especially in the East, 

 where for years the planters have had the advantage of skilled 

 scientific advice in manuring. Nearly all Ceylon tea estates 

 are now manured with great care and economy, with the 

 result that the export of tea, which seemed to be reaching its 

 maximum at about 135 millions of pounds, has gone up to a 

 new maximum of about 170 millions. In India too, tea 

 manuring has reached a high pitch of perfection, and in the 

 West Indies manuring is carefully applied to sugar, cacao and 

 other plantations. 



While in general farm-yard manure is the best, in practice 

 there is not enough of it, and artificial manures, such as 

 bone-dust, basic slag, cotton-seed cake, etc., are used. The 

 constituents usually lacking in soils are lime, potash, and 

 nitrogen. 



A method of manuring, which is very popular in Ceylon, 

 Java, and India, is what is called "green manuring." This 

 consists in growing, between the rows of the permanent crop, 

 rows or broadcasts of some plant belonging to the family 

 of the Leguminosae (peas, beans, clovers, vetches, etc.), which 

 have the property of taking up nitrogen (a constituent in which 

 the soils of the tropics, owing to their lack of humus, are 

 generally deficient) from the air. After they have grown to 

 full size, the plants are cut down, and oftenest ploughed or dug 



