Dec.  i,  1892.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
403 
land.  I have  a little  girl  and  she  is  an  enthusiastic 
gardener,  and  had  tried  sulphate  of  ammonia  and 
nitrogen  but  afterwards  found  out  that  where  before 
three  doses  had  been  given  she  would  now  have  to 
give  five  or  six.  Thus  the  last  state  of  the  garden  was 
worse  than  the  first.  Auother  sort  of  manure  is  barn 
yard  manure.  None  other  could  give  better  results 
than  this  at  present.  Barn  yard  is  the  farmers’ 
manure  and  is  a most  valuable  one  as  it  gives  back 
to  ihe  soil  what  it  takes  from  it.  But  you  may  think 
that  your  land  is  constantly  wanting  something  in 
excess  of  this.  You  may  say  such  is  not  striolly  true  ; 
the  bulk  of  the  cane  grows  from  the  air.  The  average 
of  the  waste  when  we  take  the  three  tons  of  sugar 
from  the  cane  will  be  five  or  six  tons  of  megass, 
leaves,  tops,  etc.,  probably  sufficient  to  pay  for  wliat 
has  been  taken  out  of  the  soil.  Sir  John  Bennett 
Lawes,  who  stands  head  and  shoulders  above  all 
agricultural  experimenters,  has  been  growing  wheat 
on  the  same  land  for  40  years.  For  the  first  20  years 
he  got  16£  bushels  and  for  the  second  20  a good  deal 
less,  or  an  aver  ge  over  the  whole  time  of  about  10 
to  11  bushels.  There  were  sufficient  elements  or 
enough  of  nitrogen,  potash  and  pliosphorio  acid  broken 
down  to  supply  these  crops.  It  waB  a useful  experi- 
ment but  bad  farming  all  the  same.  In  another  plat 
Sir  J.  B.  Lawes  grew  his  crop  one  year  and  summer 
fallowed  the  next.  He  got  as  much  wheat  from  the 
one  year’s  crop  as  he  had  got  from  the  two  in  the 
other  way.  One  good  crop  in  two  years  is  certainly 
better  than  two  poor  crops  in  two  seedings.  We 
learn  from  this— and  I want  to  say  this  as  far  as  I 
can  sse  and  give  my  impressions — your  soils  will 
crumble  down  and  work  up  enough  to  make  up  for 
the  necessary  loss  from  your  fields.  If  bagass  and  the 
tops  and  the  other  waste  could  be  put  baok  on  the 
fields  and  simply  the  sugar  carried  off  my  impression 
is  that  the  soil  would  be  improved  from  year  to  year. 
Some  of  you  are  now  deciding  it  in  a practical 
way  but  my  impression  is  that  there  would  not  be 
much  loss  if  the  waste  products  were  put  back.  Sup- 
posing then  we  want  to  make  our  manures.  There 
is  this  difficulty  with  planters.  It  is  difficult  to  see 
how  you  can  get  on  without  cattle.  Stock  manure 
must  be  used  in  some  of  its  forms,  either  as  cattle 
or  horses.  If  you  take  care  of  this,  take  the  filter  press 
cake  and  other  refuse  and  add  it  to  the  manures  of 
the  farm,  the  question  is  how  shall  we  use  them  to  get 
the  best  resuits.  The  climate  is  most  severe  on  the 
soil  and  on  the  manure  we  put  upon  it.  The  burning 
sun,  great  moisture,  and  the  heavy  rains  are  very  se- 
vere on  them.  Our  soils  are  deficient  in  nitrogen  be- 
cause they  are  always  being  cooked  by  the  burning 
sun,  and  washed  by  tropical  rains.  If  we  loosen  np 
our  soils  the  sun  and  the  rain  will  have  much  less  effeot, 
but  if  we  loosen  up  the  manure  we  find  it  wastes  its 
substance  and  loses  its  properties.  If  we  stir  up  a 
manure  heap  we  find  in  the  centre  it  has  a white  fun- 
gus, like  so  much  sawdust.  (Mr.  Dunne  : Is  the  steam 
escaping  the  ammonia  being  lost  ?)  Keep  water  on  it 
but  don’t  let  it  leach,  back  up  the  heap  and  oover  it  if 
possible,  but  don’t  get  too  high  a pile.  Now  about 
composting  and  saving  wastes.  This  is  a most  import- 
ant matter.  If  we  have  got  a good  pile  of  rich  stuff 
(and  you  oan  usually  tell  the  value  by  the  odor  except 
in  the  case  of  nitrates  and  one  or  two  other  things  that 
do  not  smell)  and  get  all  of  the  odds  and  ends  and  put 
them  on  next  to  your  cane  and  it  will  give  it  a quick 
start  and  make  a fast  crop.  If  you  want  a greater 
quantity  of  manure  made  then  you  can  increase  the 
pile  by  covering  it  over  with  six  inches  of  earth. 
Don’t  use  sand  it  might  as  well  be  not  covered  at 
all,  but  oover  with  three,  four,  or  six  inches  of  soil 
which  iB  rich  in  humus.  You  will  then  nearly  double 
the  size  of  your  manure  pile  and  conserve  what  would 
have  gone  to  waste  in  the  manure.  The  next  question 
will  be  how  to  apply  the  manure.  The  old  rule 
was  to  put  the  manure  in  the  fields  in  small  heaps  and 
farmer  John  said  the  heaps  held  the  nitrogen.  Farmer 
John  is  usually  right,  but  this  time  he  was  wroDg. 
He  now  spreads  it  all  over  the  fields.  An  excell- 
ent machine  has  been  made  in  the  States  which 
a mau  drives  along  and  spreads  the  manure  evenly 
over  about  15ft.  The  objection  to  leaving  it  in  piles 
is  that  more  or  less  of  the  manure  sinks  into  the 
ground.  With  the  help  I had  to  employ  I could  not  get 
anyone  to  dig  out  the  bottoms  of  the  heaps  and  you  oould 
tell  where  the  heaps  had  been  over  the  field  by  the 
more  vigorous  growth  at  those  places,  the  soil  ab- 
sorbing as  it  did  a good  deal  of  the  valuable  con- 
stituents of  the  heaps  of  manure.  The  best  thiDg 
to  do  is  to  oart  your  manure  to  the  ground  as  quietly 
as  possible.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  earth  his 
a tendency  t > seize  upon  the  amm min  as  fast  as  made. 
About  ploughing  in  manures  the  general  practice  is 
to  be  condemned.  If  you  plough  them  in  you  bury 
them  at  the  bottom  of  the  furrow  in  lumps.  The 
manure  will  not  ferment  and  will  give  next  to  no 
results  the  firBt  seasoD.  Get  the  manure  so  that  the 
earth  can  be  worked  up  with  it  thoroughly.  This 
is  the  rule  and  simply  harrowing  will  do  the  thing 
as  quiokly  as  possible.  Roots  will  always  find  the 
manure.  They  go  whe-ever  the  food  is.  There  is 
another  branoh  of  the  subject  which  should  not  be  left 
out,  that  of  green  manuring.  Many  a man  has  taken 
an  oid  worn  out  farm  abandoned  by  its  former  owner, 
and  by  judiciously  cultivating  certain  orops  such  as 
the  bean,  the  pea  and  the  clover,  and  ploughing 
them  in  and  following  them  by  putting  in  crops  which 
are  not  specially  exhausting  has  raised  a poor  hungry 
farm  to  a condition  of  extreme  fertility.  Green 
manures  will  do  this.  Farmers,  however,  often  made 
mistakes.  They  plant  such  crops  as  rape,  rye 
and  others,  and  plough  them  in  and  get  a benefit 
therefrom.  They  at  once  jump  to  the  conclusion  that 
they  have  added  to  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  but  they 
have  probably  done  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  they 
have  only  altered  the  soil  physically  by  loosening  it. 
Take  lucerne,  clover,  peas,  beans,  and  plough  in  the 
whole  of  the  crops  at  a certain  stage  and  you  add 
immensely  to  ihe  soil.  These  crops  have  the  property 
of  takiog  nitrogen  from  the  atmosphere  and  it  is 
thus  conveyed  to  the  soil.  You  will  see  now  why 
careful  cropping  goes  for  so  much,  simply  beoauee 
it  takes  nitrogen  out  of  the  atmosphere.  It  is  a sub- 
ject of  tremendous  importance  is  that  of  green  manure. 
In  the  Southern  States  the  farmers  have  found  that 
the  great  problem  is  to  get  nitrogen  into  the  soil 
and  nothing  will  do  it  so  well  as  by  the  oow  pea.  The 
cow  pea  will  do  more  in  the  way  of  furnishing  this 
rare  element  than  any  other  crop  generally  available 
to  planters.  Get  the  pea,  sow  it  broadcast  and  let 
it  grow  itself.  Let  it  rot  on  the  ground  sooner  than 
plough  it  too  soon.  It  is  better  never  to  plough 
in  a green  crop  than  to  plough  it  in  before  every- 
thing is  ready  for  it.  The  following  is  another  means 
of  improving  the  soil.  I had  hoped  this  morning 
that  Mr.  CoyDe  would  havo  opened  the  subject  with 
a discussion  on  fallowing.  The  additional  effect  of 
fallowing  besides  putting  the  land  in  excellent  con- 
dition is  to  kill  the  grass  and  weeds  out.  It  is  worth 
while  to  remember  theso  things  in  Queensland.  A 
second  class  of  fertilisers  are  the  chemical  or  commer- 
cial fertilisers.  These  are  those  which  are  commer- 
cially valuable  or  have  a position  in  the  market.  I 
have  given  an  opinion  against  using  them,  but  I do 
not  wish  it  to  be  understood  that  they  could  not  be 
made  useful  upon  every  plantation  or  farm.  Frequently 
you  have  need  of  some  manure  to  give  the  crop  a 
quick  start  and  you  have  the  phosphates.  But  I 
have  no  sympathy  with  the  idea  that  commercial  ferti- 
lisers will  revolutionize  agriculture.  The  whole  subject 
is  gradually  working  itself  out  and  in  my  opinion  the 
most  that  oan  be  said  of  the  commercial  fertilisers  is 
that  the  time  is  near  when  the  man  who  useB 
them  only  will  have  to  give  up  agriculture  altogether. 
The  man  who  neglects  to  attend  ordinary  sources  of 
manure,  the  refuse,  waste  in  the  fields  and  expeats 
to  get  on  with  commercial  fertilisers  will  have 
crops  and  he  will  be  in  a position  to  harvest  them 
by  himself.  This  reminds  one  of  the  old  story  about 
the  Sootch  Laird.  He  was  out  with  his  gardner  and 
looking  proudly  over  his  field,  said,  alluding  to  the 
commercial  fertiliser  lie  used,  *•  Well  Sandy,  and 
we’ll  soon  be  able  to  manure  a’  this  land  with  the  fill  of 
one  of  your  vest  pockets.”  “ Ay,”  said  Sandy,  “an* 
ye’ll  tak’  the  hale  orap  hame  in  tither  pocket,  I’m 
thiukiaV’  And  so  with  the  man  who  uses  i^thiDg 
