IMPROVEMENT OF THE SUGAR CANE. 117 
BRINK in Java, madein 1858 and 1859, and which are quoted 
at some length in the first and second numbers ofthe Sugar 
Cane. There we find recorded how a yield of 1°15 tons 
of sucrose per acre obtained without manure was increased 
by the use of guano to 2°4 tons, and by that of a mixture 
of oilcake, guano and ashes to 2°78 tons. Then we find 
a few trials made by M. DE JABRUN in Guadeloupe, quoted 
by VILLE in his work on artificial manures, and to which, 
together with some made in Reunion, allusions may be 
found in the pages of the Sugar Cane; but it was not 
until early in the eighties that systematic scientific 
manurial experiments were started in sugar cane growing: 
countries. As regards scientific works treating upon the 
manuring of the sugar cane as based upon the ascertained 
requirements of other of the graminez, the first place 
both in order of priority of date and of merit, is held 
by the little pamphlet, published in 1865, by Sir JOHN 
BENNET LAWES, the principles enunciated in which are 
in fa€&t our guides to this day. Then we find that elab- 
orate advertisement of the merits of an agricultural 
nostrum—the Urban Sugar Cane Manure—written by 
Dr. PHIPSON and published by him under the mislead- 
ing title of *‘ Praétical observations on Cane Manure ” 
in 1870 in the Sugar Cane. This, which I believed had 
subsided into a well-deserved oblivion, has recently been 
dragged therefrom and republished by the Botanists— 
not by the Agricultural Chemists—in Jamaica and Bar- 
bados. | 
Since 1880 field experiments with the objeét of ascer- 
taining the requirements of the sugar cane for the three 
principal elements of manurial plant food—nitrogen, phos- 
phorus and potassium,—have been carried out in more 
