February i, 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
5°5 
LOWCOUNTUY PLANTING REPORT : 
COCONUTS, CACAO, Ac. 
SEASONABLE WKA11IKK— S.-W. MONSOON FAVOURABLE TO 
THE YIELD OF COCONUT CHOPS— PRACTICE OF PERI- 
ODICA', DIGGING OR PLOUGHING OF COCONUT LAND 
DEFENDED— CHEAP LAKOUK— PLANT FOOD I THEORIES 
OF DIFFERENT SCIENTISTS CRITIZED. 
I-Iapitigam Koralc, Dec. 1887. 
November began and ended with rainy weather, 
but the iwo spells were separated by a fortnight 
of dry weather. On the wholo it has been season- 
able and satisfactory. 
It is during the S.-W. monsoon that coconut 
trees put on more than two-hirds of the crop of 
the year. The flowers developed during the N. E. 
season are either scantily supplied with germs 
or drop a large proportion, as soon as they begin 
to make any important demand on the com- 
mon resources of the tree, and if it has put on 
more crop than it can carry through the dry 
soason, it keeps on dropping germs and formed 
nuts till it has no more than it can maintain 
after a fashion. Thus, though the coconut tree is 
weakened by the dropping of immature leaves in 
a protracted drought, it never suffers from over- 
bearing. 
Having decided on digging over a field of twelve 
acres if it whs to bo managed during the current 
rainy season I found some little difficulty in get- 
ting people to do the work at the rate I decided 
to give, namoly R7 per acre. That difficulty has 
been overcome, and I have now enough of labour 
to get over half an acre, daily. As the practice 
of periodically digging or ploughing coconut land 
has been assailed and declared opposed to agricul- 
tural rule, I feel called on to defend it as best I 
may. In the first place, I have not before heard 
of the rule in question, and secondly I would not 
have been influenced by it, if it had been familiar 
to me from my childhood, while my own experience 
did not confirm it. I have never said that cutting 
the primary roots of coconuts was directly beneficial 
to tho tree, but I want a depth of seven or eight 
inches of the surface soil for the operations of cul- 
tivation, and I sacrifice all the primaries that intrude 
on that space. Moreover, if the young plant be 
regularly dug round, in a widening circle as its 
roots extend, the primaries will be kept at their 
proper level from the first. The secodary roots 
that branch out into innumerable ramifications, 
each bearing an absorbing surface at its extremity, 
are in a difforent category ; the oftener the soil i3 
turned, the more perfectly it i» pulverized and 
aerated, tho quicker will they branch out and multi- 
ply the absorbing points with or without the applica- 
tion of manure, but more with than without. 
As the absorbing surfaces by which tho food of 
plants is taken up in solution are individually more 
points, that act only on such soluble matter, as they 
are in direct contact with, that mechanical con- 
dition of the soil, that presents least impediment 
to the extension and ramification of the roots is 
that in which the absorbing points arc most multi- 
plied, and the healthy growth of the plant most 
aided. Nor is this the only advantage of frequently 
breaking up the soil, a loose soil absorbs many times 
as much moisture as a still and compact one, and 
renders it up very much slowly either to evapora- 
tion ot percolation. As plants take up that part of 
their DJBtrim«nt obtained from the soil in solution, 
it is only such part of tho elements speoifically 
neeeuan to the plant that are immediately soluble, 
of which the roots can avail themselves. But in 
all soils, there aro portions of the elements that 
Mltci ml., vegetable organization that are and con- 
tinue insoluble till chemically acted on by tho at- 
1110. ph. ic, tut the action) "of the aii n aimo't 
entirely excluded from a compact unbroken soil- 
Thus, breaking up the soil not only gives grea'er 
freedom for the extension of roots, but supplies 
additional plant food. 
That water was the sole food of plants was held 
a century and-a-half ago by the first ranks in seience 
of the clay, and that in the name of inductive 
reasoning. Yule having observed that the roots of 
plants travelled fast and far in pulverized soil, seized 
on that one truth as a complete solution of a 
complex problem, ond taught that the whole art 
and science of agriculture consisted in the manipula- 
tion of the soil. Only thirty years ago the great 
chemist Licbig thought that plants derived nothing 
from the soil, but the constituent elements of their 
ashes. Itbas been since demonstrated that nitrogen, 
the most universally present element in vegetable 
tissues, is not derived from the air but from the soil, 
and the agricultural chemists of today value manures 
by the measure of nitrogen they contain. These 
and many other exploded theories had either some 
fragment of truth or show of likelihood to rest on. 
Water is necessary to all vegetation, and some 
plants flourish in water alone. Almost nil cultivated 
plants grow better on wrought than on unwrought 
soil, and it required agricultural experience, as well 
as chemical skill to decide whether plants obtained 
their nitrogen from earth or air. We have lately 
heard a theory ascribed to a Welsh gardener, that 
has neither fact nor likelihood to base on, namely, 
" that the roots of plants within a circle round 
the stem " (diameter undefined) " supply fruit- 
forming material, while all that extend beyond the 
circle supply only leaf and wood -forming material." 
This theory was advanced in support of the system 
of applying manure to coconut trees in a circular 
trench round the stem, because in that region 
alone are the fruit-feeding roots. Now in my ex- 
perience, I have generally found that if I have a 
good stout stem and a heavy head of leaf, I have 
a heavy bearing-tree; therefore I manure for wood and 
leaf, and leave the fruit crop to shift for itself.* 
The most generally accepted theory on this branch 
of phytology is that all the absorbing surfaces 
alike select from the general mixed solution of all 
the elements in the soil in definite proportions, 
just those that the species requires and no others, 
that the crude sap so obtained is passed a'ong 
the proper vessels till it reaches the leaves, where 
the air converts it into the specific sap or blood 
of the plant, and that it then circulates through 
all the parts for the nourishment in due proportion 
of all the tissues, root, wood, bark, leaf, flower 
and fruit. 
4 . 
OYSTER CULTTRE IX FRANCE. 
Some remarkable statistics showing the progress 
of the oyster trade in France have just been pub- 
lished. It appears from them that during the past 
twelvemonth the beds have produced no fewer than 
(iOO millions of oysters, or ten times more than in 
1870. The progress dots not concern quantify 
alone ; the quality also shows an equally nott worthy 
improvement. In 1883 France exported 81 millions, 
this year the exporaiion will not be less thun ~»0 
millions. The culture ot what is known as tho 
Portuguese " naissain" has been eminently suc- 
cessful in France. Formerly France imported great 
quantities of them ; for example, in 1888 she 
imported 1.">Ii'.I7 kilogrammes, representing a 
value of nearly j.(i(M,iioo f. Instead of importing, 
she now exports them : thus, for the prerent 
year the exports of Portuguese oysters amount to 
•This in a ratbrr off-h«n,l wny of treating lli» 
matter, but wbeo one ws» to deal with uonseusc 
why be particular i 
