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of forest land wh ch would require a very heavy outlay and perhaps a 

 term of a hundred years to restore. Albert Town was not so long ago 

 a centre for the cultivation but I was told there that growers had 

 already got as far as fourteen miles further inland. 



Ginger can be and is grown in many places year after year on the 

 same ground. An intelligent cultivator at Borobiidge stated that he 

 knew of ginger growing for forty years in the same patch. 



Seaford Town is a Grerman colony and one of the original colonists, 

 Soniers, an active old man of 86 years of age, has been cultivating ginger 

 and arrowroot there since his youth ; he and the other colonists have 

 been in the habit of planting a small patch one year leaving it to ratoon 

 as long as it was profitable, then throwing it up or growing other plants 

 until bfter a term of years they again plant the same patch with ginger. 

 This is an irregular rotation of crops " \ lant ginger" the produce of 

 planting is of better quality than the ratoons and the ratoons in each 

 succeeding year are inferior. When the ground is too poor to grow 

 " white ginger" then " blue ginger" the inferior variety can be grown. 



More depends upon the curing of ginger, considering the crop as a 

 livelihood than soil. At Seaford Town there was a wet season about 

 two years ago, the people could not dry the ginger in the sun, it mil- 

 dewed, there was consequently very little sale, and the cultivators 

 suffered some distress. I believe from what I saw that as a rule careful 

 attention is given to the curing, and that the badly cured ginger 

 brought sometimes to market is due to wet weather rather than to want 

 of care. 



It is difficult to make any recommendations on the subject but the fol- 

 lowing hints may indicate what points are worthy of consideration by 

 the cultivators The first is the application "of manure. There is a 

 prejudice against its use, some maintaining that it breeds worms, and 

 that there also is a difficulty in getting it in any quantity. It is pro- 

 bable that those who have not succeeded with manure, have used it im- 

 properly by applying it fresh or not sufficiently mixed with soil. As to 

 obtaining it in quantity, example should be taken from the Chinese 

 labourer who preserves every particle of matter that can in any way be 

 utilised as manure, not only cattle manure, but decaying matter of any 

 kind, night-soil, etc., even soapy water left after washing is most useful. 

 To imitate the formation of forest soil, a pit might be filled with alter- 

 nate layers of bush and manure, everything in the nature of manure or 

 decaying matter should be thrown in, and a layer of soil directly over the 

 manure would be useful. The pit ought to be lined with clay to prevent 

 the very valuable part of the liquid of the manure from escaping, and a 

 cover of some kind, e. g. a sheet of corrugated iron, should be fixed in 

 some way over the pit to keep out rains. I noticed several head of 

 cattle in the feeaford Town district, and apparently the manure is lost, 

 because the cattle wander about in search of food. Possibly grass or 

 clover might be grown in old ginger grounds, and the cattle tethered so 

 as to confine them in one place and the mauure easily collected. 



To facilitate curing and even sometimes to save the crop, the chief 

 storekeeper in a district, who buys the ginger might find it advan- 

 tageous to himself and the people to invest in an American Evaporator 

 and dry the ginger artificially. 



