394 SPICES 



CHAP. 



deposit several feet in depth. The plant grows luxuri- 

 antly in such soil, but apparently will not grow in 

 marshy soil, nor where there is present more than 10 to 

 20 per cent of clay or 30 per cent of sand." 



It certainly seems to dislike more than a com- 

 paratively small percentage of sand. The sandy soils 

 are more apt to pack after a heavy rain, and to become 

 too dense for the rhizomes of the plant. Wet swampy 

 ground does not suit it at all, and ground apt to be 

 Jlooded is to be avoided. 



In cases in which the ground becomes too dry in the 

 dry season, a system of irrigation will be needed, and 

 swampy ground may be utilised by systematic and 

 careful drainage. But the ideal ground for ginger is 

 good garden soil, rich in humus, light and well worked, 

 friable and fairly dry. \ A very large proportion of the 

 gmger produced in Jamaica is cultivated by the natives 

 as a garden-plant in small plots, in much the same way 

 as potatoes are grown in England. 



The class of soil in which it is grown seems to have 

 a considerable importance, not only in the amount of 

 the crop, but in the size of the hands or rhizomes, and 

 in their texture. Thus it is remarked that in rich cool 

 soil, recently cleared of wood, " it grows so luxuriantly 

 that a large spreading root will weigh near a pound. It 

 is, however, remarked that what is produced from a 

 clayey, tenacious soil shrinks less in scalding, while 

 such as is raised in richer, free black moulds loses 

 considerably in that operation." l 



/ IrT^Tamaica for mfiny years the extravagant and 

 /ruinous policy of destruction of virgin forest by felling 

 and burning, followed by cultivation of ginger for a few 

 years and then abandoning the land, now spoilt and 

 worn out, and destroying more forest, was pursued, as 

 has been done in the Straits Settlements and others of 

 our colonies. The soil of the virgin forest is rich enough 

 for the growth of ginger, and will last for a few years, 

 when, with the washing out of the nutritive elements 



1 Long's "Jamaica," quoted in Kew Bulletin, 1892, p. 79. 



