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equator. But one is not more absurd than the other. Many years ago 

 before the present Botanic Gardens were started there was a great 

 advertising of Prickly Comfrey as a highly suitable plant for fodder 

 improving the soil, etc. Many planters it is said spent a good deal of 

 money on this plant, a native of southern Europe and of course lost 

 every cent they spent on it. 



A good fertilizer for the tropics is certainly badly wanted but it 

 is not in the Palaearctic region, i.e., Europe, Northern Asia and North 

 America that we need look for it. It must be a tropical plant, or at 

 least a subtropical one, and it should also be a leguminous plant. 



At present we have no plants which are completely suited in 

 every way. Crotalaria striata is often highly spoken of. It does not 

 it seems to me thrive in damp low-lying ground and seems more at 

 home in sandy places. It is also a slow spreader. The branches are 

 too erect to cover the ground nicely and its seeds are persistently 

 destroyed by a weevil. Tephrosia purpurea used in Java for this 

 purpose is rather woody and makes woody stems branching above. 

 Still it might be grown short and cut back, and prove satisfactory. It 

 grows very readily and does not seem to be attacked by beetles or 

 other pests. Mimosa, the sensitive plant has the objection of course 

 that it is thorny. Indigo distinctly improves soil and the rubber 

 trees grown among the Chinese indigo in the Chasseriau Estate 

 in Singapore are very much better than those grown there elsewhere 

 but it must be said that the Chinese do work the ground between the 

 trees and use a good lot of manure. 



The little Desmodiums, D. triflora and D. heterophylla so com- 

 mon on road-sides and in grass plots, improve the soil wherever they 

 grow, but they are rather small and the collection of their seed is 

 rather troublesome. A bigger herbaceous tropical D&smodium if it 

 could be found would probably be the best thing we could get, Des- 

 modiums correspond most nearly of tropical plants to clovers and 

 and melilots, but most of them are rather shrubby and do not fill the 

 ground very well. Some however are herbaceous and creeping, and 

 perhaps we may be able to get a suitable plant from Brazil or Central 

 Africa, but certainly not from temperate regions. 



H. N. R. 



Since writing the above I hear that the Crotalaria has done very 

 well in some parts of the peninsula. Can some planter who has had 

 experience of it give some account of it. — Ed. 



COCONUT-PLANTING TERRITORY 

 OF PAPUA. 



(From particulars supplied by Mr. N. R. Schroder to " Dalgety's Review.") 

 The interest which is being aroused in the Commonwealth at the 

 present time by the possibilities of the territory of Papua for coconut 

 and rubber cultivation has induced Mr. N. R. Schroder, of Milne Bay, 

 Papua, to send us some particulars of the former industry, which we 

 have pleasure in publishing for the information of any intending planters. 



