100 TECHNIQUE 



large variety of crops, and it has been shown that 

 they can be applied with advantage and profit to 

 many of the more valuable irrigated crops, such as 

 sugar-cane, onions, potatoes, tobacco, plantains, etc. 

 A demand for artificial manures now exists, which 

 amounts to perhaps 1000 tons a year in the case of 

 sulphate of ammonia for top-dressing to sugar-cane, 

 and to a much smaller but growing quantity for 

 complete manures for some of the other crops. For 

 unirrigated crops, however, artificials will not pay at 

 present prices even in the regions of good rainfall, 

 and the only exception yet discovered to this rule is 

 the application of bone meal to rice, which gives ex- 

 cellent results on laterite soils, and the use of sulphate 

 of ammonia for rice on the heavier soils. The case 

 is similar in the matter of oil-cake. It can be applied 

 with much advantage to many kinds of irrigated 

 crops, but it does not pay to apply it to dry crops, 

 with the possible exception of cotton in Khandesh. 



So, too, in the case of green manuring, this device 

 can be used most effectively for many irrigated crops, 

 and for sugar-cane a green manuring with san hemp 

 (Crotalaria juncea) will replace the huge dressing of 

 farm-yard manure which many farmers give, to the 

 extent of 150 tons per acre. For dry crops, however, 

 its use is limited by the fact that in most cases the 

 farmer who adopts this expedient gets no return from 

 the green-manured land for a year, and though he will 

 greatly increase the fertility of the land so treated, the 

 smallness of the holdings makes the farmers unwilling 



