June, 1910.] 



516 



Scientific Agriculture. 



an increase of hundreds of millions of 

 solid cash which the planters will have 

 to spend. 



If mulching were an expensive affair 

 or difficult, there will be more sympathy 

 for the losers. But the dust mulch is of 

 the simplest preparation ; the straw, or 

 leaf blanket is, except for the grain 

 crop?, almost always possible and pro- 

 fitable, the live mulch, or " cover crop," 

 is the triple-action modern implement 

 which the farmer is beginning to wield 

 very successfully in the soil-food-man 

 war. If roots were only outside, on the 

 top where the easy-going, well-meaning, 

 farmer could see them and note their 

 symptoms and understand them ! But, 

 of course, being stuck into the ground, 

 they are just anchors or props, and 

 therefore their comfort— under the even 

 coolness and moistness of a mulch where 

 the microbes can multiply and the 

 humus business hum— their very exis- 

 tence is practically forgotten. 



Once on a cacao plantation belonging 

 to one of the well-known English firms 

 the manager ordered a labourer from 

 the dank, insanitary recesses of the 

 sodden "field" to demonstrate to me 

 the good old way of "forking" the 

 yurface soil. After an embarrassing 

 quart de minute, the perplexed fellow 

 said, " I can't boss ; I got no cutlets." 

 Such things seem incredible, of course, 

 but one can see only too commonly, the 

 root-murdering method iu actual prac- 

 tice just as one may see grass knee-high 

 in coconut nurseries, or scorching hot 

 white sand between the nearly half 

 exposed nuts, which have an unac- 

 counted. for habit of dying, or at least 

 sulking for years. 



To suggest a leguminous live mulch to 

 the more advanced class of agriculturist 

 is to meet with the objection that— 

 " there is only enough moisture, to say 

 nothing of food, in the ground for the 

 primary crop, and, besides, the blanket 

 crop would hardly give back its own 

 seed." 



The vertical forking method, to let in 

 air and food and break the clamminess 

 of clayey or silty " packed " soils, which 

 was first put befoie the Agricultural 

 Society of Trinidad and Tobago in 1907, 

 was hailed with gladness by perhaps 

 half-a-dozen cacao planters and put into 

 immediate, if but transitory, practice. . . 

 Give a coconut, orange, tea, or coffee, 

 estate manager a live mulch plant to 

 keep down the grass and weeds and to 

 freshen and enrich the surface soil, then 

 hear him explain that he has long-stand- 



ing orders to make " not less than three 

 general cleanings per annum," and they 

 must be made on a very generous scale 

 under pain of the suspicious proprietors ' 

 criticism. 



AN AMERICAN METHOD OF 

 DEVELOPING AGRICULTURE. 



(From the Journal of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, Vol. XVII., No. 1, April 1910). 

 Great efforts are made by the agri- 

 cultural colleges in the United States to 

 attract and interest famers in their 

 work. One method, which seems to be 

 increasingly popular, is to bring instruc- 

 tion to the farmer's door by the use of a 

 special train, from which lectures are 

 given at wayside stations. An instance 

 of the use of a train in this way was 

 mentioned iu this Journal in July last 

 (p. 328), and a similar, but somewht novel, 

 form of giving instruction has recently 

 been tried in Indiana. 



The train was supplied without charge 

 by the Erie Railway Company for the 

 Agricultural Experiment Station of 

 Purdue University, Lafayette, which 

 provided the lecturers and exhibits. 



The train was composed of three 

 coaches and a double side door horse and 

 carriage car. Lectures of 45 minutes' 

 duration each were given at the stations 

 where the train stopped. The lectures 

 were given in the coaches, which had 

 been fitted up with charts by the 

 University ; and the horse and carriage 

 car contained three cows for demon- 

 stration purposes. 



After a lecture of 30 minutes had been 

 delivered a 15-minute demonstration was 

 given in regard to the cows. When the 

 people had assembled on the platform, 

 one of the doors of the car in which the 

 cows were kept was thrown open, and 

 two Jerseys were shown to the spectators. 

 The general run of the demonstration 

 lecture was as follows :-- 



"Here you see two Jersey cows. Can 

 anyone say off-hand which is the better ? 

 The first cow cost about £10 per annum 

 to feed. She produced £11. 10s. worth of 

 milk or £11 15s. worth of butter fat, so 

 you had about 35s. profit per annum 

 for the pleasure of milking her twice a 

 day. The second cow, auother Jersey, is 

 a better producer, and gave £19 worth 

 of milk. This cow also cost £10 per 

 annum to feed, but she showed a much 

 larger profit. We get at the value of 

 these cows by record. Every farmer 

 should keep a record of his cows, the 

 same as every other business man does 



