Note on the Arrangement of Sugar Cane 
Experiments. 
By $. B. Harrison, M.A., &e., &c. 
Bay N the paper which I recently read before the 
Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society, 
« while speaking of the experiments conduéted 
by Mr. SCARD on behalf of the Colonial Company, I 
alluded to the fa@t that agricultural experiments on 
sugar estates are necessarily carried out on plots of 
considerable area, probably of, at least, half an acre insize. 
The difficulty, or rather thealmostimpossibility, of securing 
fields of areas of 12 acres and over, upon which the soil 
is of such uniformity of composition and texture that each 
half acre upon it is of equal fertility with every other, 
militates greatly against_the accuracy and consequent 
success of such experiments. In some cases the differ- 
ences on adjacenc half acres of land are so great as not 
only apparently to neutralise the effe€ts of manures, but 
even to invert them, and we may get such improbable 
results as a diminution in yield of sugar per acre by the 
application of 2 cwt. of sulphate of ammonia. 
While. broad questions with regard to the composition 
of sugar cane manures and to the relative values of 
different varieties of canes can be settled by the experi- 
ments which are being carried on at the Botanic Gardens, 
it is very evident that the final decisions on these points 
must be arrived at on the sugar estates. The problem, 
therefore, presents itself as to how we may most readily 
obtain correét conclusions. 
Difference due to varying seasons and rainfall can, of 
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