CHAPTER V 



CULTIVATION AFTER PLANTING. MULCHING. 



EARTH MULCH. DRY MULCH. GREEN 



MULCH. PLOUGHING 



CULTIVATION AFTER PLANTING 



Mulching. Keeping down weeds, maintaining a surface 

 mulch, and loosening the soil are all important matters 

 in the cultivation of bananas, as of other plants. Mulching 

 has, during the last ten or twelve years, been strongly 

 advocated by agricultural authorities in the West Indies.* 

 The dust or earth mulch, the dry mulch, and the green 

 mulch are the forms most commonly employed. The 

 earth mulch is the form that is advocated in America, the 

 surface layer of fine loose soil varying from 3 in. in the 

 eastern United States to 6 or 7 in. in California and the 

 arid regions ; the dry green mulches are the forms that 

 have been chiefly used in the West Indies. The principle 

 is that where there is no mulch, the compacted surface 

 layer forcibly abstracts the moisture from the layers below 

 it, and evaporates it from its surface ; while the mulch 

 of loose surface soil or of decaying vegetable matter is 

 unable to take any moisture from the denser subsoil, 

 which is therefore protected from evaporation. This is 

 well illustrated by the familiar fact that while a dry brick 

 will suck a wet sponge dry, a dry sponge (corresponding 



* See Bulletin of the Botanical Department, Jamaica, viii. 54 (1901), and 

 elsewhere ; Bulletin of the, Department of Agriculture, Jamaica, i. 126 

 (1903), and elsewhere ; Hon. Dr. F. Watts, in Agricultural Report on 

 Dominica, 1905, and in many Reports since ; Journ. Jam. Agric. Soc. 

 in many articles and notes. 



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