208 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sides constant care is required to prevent the pigeon-pea branches over- 

 crowding the young cacao, and " whipping " its delicate branch tips in gusts 

 of wind. Cow-peas, of all varieties, velvet beans, woolly pyrol, and ground- 

 nuts have all been unsuccessfully experimented with during the past few 

 years. Either these crops require careful replanting every four months 

 (the expense and labour involved being prohibitive), or their growth is so 

 vigorous (as in the case of velvet and Bengal beans) that they are likely 

 to do more harm than good to young cacao plants. Mr. Hamel Smith 

 suggests the planting of ground-nuts in adjacent ground with a view to 

 transporting the vines to beneath the cacao tree and burying them there. 

 This system could only be economically defensible where the cultivation of 

 ground nuts showed a clear net profit, and this would only be found on 

 light sandy soils ; the cost of harvesting the crop on a soil at all clayey 

 more than eats up all the profits, in fact in the United States it is con- 

 Bidered that to turn a drove of pigs into the ground-nut field is the cheapest 

 way to harvest the crop. 



Some three years ago, in his " Annual Report on Agriculture in 

 Dominica," Dr. Watts published an analysis on the manurial value of 

 weeds found growing amongst cacao and lime plantations. Speaking from 

 memory an acre of these was found to contain manurial value equivalent to 



1 cwt. sulphate of. ammonia . . . value £0 16 0 



2 „ basic slag ,,080 



| „ sulphate potash ,,080 



riir~o 



The system followed by all up-to-date planters now is to endeavour to 

 bury these weeds green at least three times a year, and I think you will 

 agree with me that in conjunction with applications of other manures 

 this system is an excellent one, and of course the more bush grass, vines, 

 or dead leaves that can be brought in from adjacent lands and buried, the 

 better the results. 



As the result of watching some ten or twenty manurial experimental 

 plots for the last seven years, I think that the following facts have been 

 brought out. The best estate results are obtained from heavy applications 

 of pen manure, combined with basic slag, annual forking and burying of 

 \. eeds, with careful pruning and cultivation. Not one planter in a thousand 

 however, can apply pen manure to all his cacao, therefore I regard basic 

 imbined with annual forking, burying of weeds, careful pruning and 

 cultivation, as the stand-by of the cacao planter, and the results which 

 have been published by the Imperial Department of Agriculture, and the 

 of private planters in Grenada and St. Lucia, fully bear out this 

 statement. Those who have these matters at their finger-ends may object 

 that the best results have been obtained from mulching in Dominica, and 

 correctly so, but the cognate point is — can the average private planter 

 obtain a sufficient quantity of lawn mowings and Saman leaves to duplicate 

 the conditions existent at the Botanic Station, Dominica ? I think not, 

 ' 1 1 '>• cil:. !. • • | n Tim. ni 1 ins j)ro vi'd that mulching is a valuable adjunct 



to pen and imported manures. Our experiments have gone to prove that 

 nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia, although useful to growing trees, 

 do not materially increase crops ; that potash is not an appreciable factor 



