V 



FIELD CULTURE 



151 



increase of yield can with reasonable confidence be 

 expected to pay, over the cost of the fertilizers and of 

 their application. At the present time we have no suffi- 

 cient knowledge as to the effect of any fertilizer upon 

 the coco-nut. If we had this, it would still be necessary 

 to take into account, from the standpoint of the coco- 

 nut, the different conditions in different localities, and, 

 from the standpoint of the planter, the relative value of 

 money invested in fertilizers, and of the same money 

 applied in other ways. The effect of fertilizers is to 

 produce greater crops on a given area of land with a 

 given application of labour. If both land and labour 

 are expensive, the use of fertilizers will be relatively 

 profitable. Their cost varies comparatively little from 

 place to place throughout the world. They have a fixed 

 or but moderately varying value in the main centres of 

 distribution. Their value elsewhere is this primary cost 

 plus the expense of transportation ; and the cost of 

 transportation, even though in some places considerable, 

 still results in a local value or cost of fertilizers very 

 much less fluctuating, from place to place through the 

 tropics, than are the values of land and labour. 



There are also available in every place fertilizing 

 materials of local origin, which in most places are 

 neglected even though their cost would be very slight. 

 There are places in the tropics where both land and 

 labour are cheap, but such places are usually at decided 

 disadvantages in other respects. There are places, such 

 as the Philippines, where land remains cheap but labour 

 is becoming rather expensive ; and others, such as 

 Ceylon, where land is expensive and labour remains 

 cheap. Where the combined cost of land and labour is 

 such that the establishment and maintenance in decent 

 condition of a plantation is relatively inexpensive, money 

 is likely to bring a better return if invested in the 

 extension of a plantation than it is if devoted to secur- 

 ing the highest returns from a given area. 



-Aside from these purely business considerations, and 

 from the actual richness of the soil as indicated by 



