190 ~MANURING COFFEE. 
lated by Crookes and published by Longmans, possesses. 
all the interest of a sensational novel. When we say 
that the new system dispenses with cattle manure we 
do not mean that M. Ville undervalues this substance,. 
especially when mixed with artificial manures, But. 
what he insists on is that farmyard manure pays 
only when the animals who produce it perform the 
labour of the farm, and when it has to be carried. 
only a short distance. And even under the most 
favourable conditions, farming by only the manures 
produced on a farm, taken, in fact, from its own sub- 
stance, cannot pay. There is considerable loss when 
animals fed on a farm are removed from it, but 
when successive crops are removed, the very elements 
on which the fertility of the soil depends gradually 
disappear, and, unless fertilizers from abroad are in- 
troduced, the land will inevitably become sterile. If 
portions of a farm are left in pasture, the French pro- 
fessor insists on the necessity of manuring this pasture- 
land just as much as the arable portion of the farm. 
From the fact that the lectures of which the book is 
composed were delivered in France, much attention 
is devoted to beet-root culture, aud what concerns 
us more closely, the effect of certain manures on 
sugar-cane culture, is adduced. We say that this 
affects us more closely, because it is certain that, as 
a general rule, the manures which are good for sugar- 
cane and wheat are good for coffee. To the culture 
of the latter plant there is no allusion in M, Ville’s 
disquisitions, but, after reading his work, we feel 
certain that on visiting a coffee estate and seeing a 
certain proportion ofthe land set aside for the growth 
of guinea-grass to feed cattle, he would at once ask 
whether, with the addition of otl-cake, the cattle were 
rapidly fattened fora good market, or whether the 
animals were utilized for araught purposes of a paying 
nature either on or beyond the plantatiom. If told 
that it paid to keep cattle simply for their manure, 
such cattle being wholly or mainly fed on grass grown 
on a portion of the estate capable of growing coffee, 
tea, cinchona or cacao, we suspect he would put some 
very searching questions of the ‘‘ Will it pay ?” order. 
He would be told that, althongh the price cf dead 
meat is anomalously high, the market for fat cattle 
is neither extensive nor very remunerative, and that. 
what with cost of food (working bullocks requiring 
Something more than grass) and the competition of 
human labour (for short distances), it was questionable 
whether the work done on the estate or the hire. 
earned (or saved) beyond it paid for attendance and 
keep. The qualifications would, however, be mentioned, 
