44 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



cattle manure is not available, Crotalaria will 

 be found to be a very useful substitute for 

 the formation of humus. In common with 

 other leguminous plants, it has the further 

 valuable property of being able to appropriate 

 nitrogen from the atmosphere to enrich the 

 soil. All green matter, whether leguminous or 

 not, should be buried so as to enrich the soil 



" Analysis of the soil will be useful to find 

 out whether it is acid ; if so this can, to a 

 very large extent, be corrected if the treatment 

 before suggested of tilling and liming the soil 

 be carried out ; analysis also finds out whether 

 the soil is deficient in any constituents, for, 

 according to the ' Law of the Minimum/ if 

 the soil be very rich in all the necessary 

 constituents of fertility and be deficient in one, 

 even the most unimportant, the crop will be 

 adversely affected. 



" If the fronds be cut up, heaped and 

 burnt, and the husks be removed to the 

 different fields and be burnt or buried, the 

 elements of fertility removed from the soil 

 will be represented only by the nuts. The 

 transport of husks to be burnt will be a 

 costly item in the expenditure. If means 

 could be devised to burn them where the 

 nuts are heaped, 1 without damaging the 

 surrounding trees, the cost of transport will 

 be diminished. If the husks be buried, the 



1 As by the incinerators described in the section on 

 Pests. 



