Notes on the Society's Work in 1897-1018. xxxixl 



contains a very great quantity of soluble peaty compounds which are 

 plant-poisons it is evident that, as I have known them to do in practice, 

 applications of heavy dressings of pegass will result in the reduction of 

 immediate fertility with little, if any, promise of future increment. Pegass 

 requires to be materially altered in composition before its constituents 

 become available as soil-ameliorants and as plant-food. It must in 

 fact be first converted into " bacterised peat." 



To my mind it is futile to discuss such methods whilst we neglect 

 that very practical and immediately available one of mulching the cane- 

 lands yearly with heavy dressings of rice-straw. 



Flooding the Land. 

 During the period under review this excellent mode of ameliorating the 

 soil has come into vogue. Instituted by the late R. G. Duncan at Windsor 

 Forest in 1894-5 for the destruction of root-fungus and various insect 

 pests of soil and sugar-cane (it had been earlier in use on sugar-planta- 

 tions in Surinam) the excellent results which ensued have caused it to be 

 widely adopted. Its action appears to be a complex one. 



During the time the land is under water the organisms causing root- 

 fungus disease of the sugar-cane are destroyed, and so are numerous 

 insect-pests which have their habitat in the soil, on sugar-cane debris, and 

 on weeds ; oxidation of certain soil-constituents becomes far more active 

 and is possibly at its maximum owing to the surticial growths on the 

 water of certain algae and bacteria ; the salts which have accumulated in 

 the sub-soil during long-continued sugar-cane cultivation are largely re- 

 moved in solution in the water used for flooding ; whilst the general 

 texture of the soil is very greatly improved. Possibly the adoption of 

 this system is among the most important agricultural innovations duiing 

 the period under review. It is not, however, as practised here as success- 

 ful from a financial point of view as it might be. Why should the land 

 be allowed to lie fallow during the period of flooding ? Just as good 

 results will accrue to the soil if it bears a crop of rice as if it is fallowed. 

 Planters should make use of the Java system. Flood the land, but do not 

 leave it idle ; whilst this is taking place rice should be grown. 

 Flood the land, raise one or two crops of rice, insisting that all rice straw, 

 etc., be left on the land or on the meres ; plough up burying the residua of 

 the rice crops, and replant with sugar-cane. This should result in crops 

 of possibly three or even four tons of sugar per acre.- 



This system however cannot be widely adopted until there is a means 

 of economicahy tilling the land. In fact the amelioration of the sugar-cane 

 lands of the colony cannot be brought about either by raising green 

 leguminous dressings, applying rice-straw in large quantities, or by a 

 rotation with rice on flooded lands until mechanical appliances for deep 

 tillage and possibly for subsoiling the land are economically available. 

 Personally I have not the slighest doubt that mechanical deep tillage and 

 subsoiling will greatly assist the beneficial effect of flooding the land. 



