368 The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



Nlanihot Glaziovii for normal tropical climates. 

 Manihot Dichotoma for rather dry regions. 

 Manihot Piauiensis for light sandy soil only in rather dry 

 regie ns* 



These three varieties are very suitable for elevations ; especially Dichotoma 

 and Piauiensis which have been successfully planted up to 5,500 feet. 



Seeds true to name 



carefully prepared and tested, we supply for trial orders, postage paid to all 

 countries, in 



Parcels of lOlbs- net at £3, 



after receipt of money order or cheque. 



10 lbs. contain about 3,700 seeds of Dichotoma or Piauhiensis; about 6,300 

 seeds of Glaziovii ; if requested the parcels can also be assorted, according to 

 orders in two or three of these varieties. — Prices for bags of 135 lbs. on 

 application. 



Hevea Plantations 



have found the Manihots very useful for elevations unsuitable for the culti- 

 vation of Hevea, thus making use of idle land. 



Gevekoht & Wedekind 



Hamburg 1. 



Telegraphic-Address: "Gevekind Hamburg." 

 : A. B. C. Code 5th Edition. :: 



USE AND ABUSE OF FERTSLISERS. 



The following is from the " Mark Lane Ex- 

 press Agricultural Journal " : — A lecture on the 

 above subject was recently delivered by Mr. G A 

 Cowie to the Maidstone Farmers' Club. Farm- 

 jard manure is the foundation of fertility and its 

 storage, said the lecturer, is a very important 

 question. Everything should be done so as to 

 avoid the loss of the liquid. When it decomposed 

 there was a certain loss of ammonia and the 

 bacteria which really caused the loss of the am- 

 monia thrived best when the temperature rose, 

 and it was therefore necessary to keep the tem- 

 perature as low as possible. Another point was 

 to keep the heap, and it was in the form of aheap, 

 as compressed and consolidated as possible ; that 

 way they would lessen the loss of ammonia. 



The province of artificial fertilisers is to sup- 

 plement farmyard manure, ai.d in the opinion of 

 Mr. Cowie, it is astonishing what ignorance pre- 

 vails with regard to their use. First as to nitro- 

 gen, the specific action of this substance is to 

 stimulate leaf development, and therefore when 

 nitrogen is deficient, the plant is stunted. 



As to phosphates, when this constituent is de- 

 ficient the proportion of straw to grain is too 

 great, so that whilst the nitrogen acted on the 

 foliage or the stem, the phosphates and potash 

 had more to do with the fruit or the root for- 

 mation, as the case 'night be. 



The characteristics of the different forms of 

 nitrogen were explained, and then the lecturer 

 dealt with the ordinary phosphatic manures. 

 He spoke a good word for steamed bone flour, 

 which contains about 1 per cent of nitrogen and 

 58 per cent of phosphates. For certain crops, 

 such as turnips, for instance, these manures were 

 not sufficiently known to the farmer. Steam 



bone flour was sold as a rule in a better divided 

 form than bone meal, and consequently acted 

 quicker. For some reason or other, which was 

 difficult to explain, it was not used very generally 

 by farmers. He supposed that they thought 

 that when the nitrogen was removed the value 

 of the manure was lost to some extent, but there 

 was really no ground for this prejudice. Then 

 there were the guano manures, such as Peruvian 

 guano, etc. It would not be denied that the 

 chief constituents of manure were present in 

 guano in a very tine form. Take, for instance, 

 the ammonia that was present in what was 

 known as an organic form, or in a manner in 

 which it was easily soluble by the plant. 



The last class of manure was the potash manure 

 of which there were three kinds on the English 

 market, There was kainit, which contained 12J 

 per cent of pure potash ; also sulphate of potash 

 and muriate of potash. With regard to potatoes 

 he thought he could be dogmatic on that sub- 

 ject. Potatoes were a crop for which he thought 

 eulphate of potash would be the best to use. 

 Muriate of potash was certainly not to be recom- 

 mended for potatoes. If the land was deficient 

 in lime, then the sulphate would be better than 

 the muriate, Again, with regard to the appli- 

 cation of potash manures, kainit should be put 

 on in the autumn, as there was no doubt that 

 better results came from an application in the 

 autumn than from one in the spring. It was, of 

 course, impossible for the phosphates or potash 

 to produce the proper effect unless they were 

 incorporated in the soil before the plants began 

 to grow, because they took some time to get far 

 enough into the soil. It was a remarkable thing 

 that the farmers who systematically applied 

 potash salts had suffered the least from the 

 drought.— Western Mail, March 16. 



