150 



THE COCO-NUT 



CHAP. 



not very dense, it will usually be found impracticable to 

 raise any other crop on a large scale between the 

 coco-nuts ; and the best practice in such cases will be to 

 cut down all vegetation between the coco -nuts and to 

 put the grove into pasture. 



FERTILIZERS 



More attention has been given to the effect of 

 different fertilizers than to any other phase of the study 

 of the crops of temperate regions. It is a widespread 

 feeling that the same attention would be equally profit- 

 able in the case of the coco-nut. In appreciation of the 

 importance of the subject, rather than in the expression 

 of our knowledge on it, Prudhomme devotes nearly one 

 hundred and fifty pages to the discussion of the need of 

 fertilizers under various conditions, of the fertilizers to 

 be employed, and of the method and time of application. 

 There are other treatises on the coco-nut which dismiss 

 this subject with a page or so, and even then omit very 

 little definite information. There is no cultivated crop 

 which cannot be made more productive by the applica- 

 tion of fertilizers. If a crop is harvested year after year 

 from the same ground, as is done with the coco-nut, 

 there is a steady removal of food material. It is per- 

 fectly obvious that, assuming that this material comes 

 from the soil about the roots, there must be a steady 

 depletion of the stock of available food. This food store 

 is always a limited one. Moreover, it is almost always 

 less, even when the crop is planted, than would produce 

 the most thrifty development and yield. Fertilizers are 

 needed, then : first, to cause a production more ample 

 than the natural store of food suffices for ; and second, to 

 replace what is taken away or tied up in the growth of 

 the plant. 



Eemembering as always that agriculture is a 

 business, we must consider, as each farmer must do for 

 himself, not merely what application of fertilizers would 

 produce an increased yield, but the profit which this 



