376 
THE TROPICAL 
AaRICULTURIST. [Dec. 1, 1900. 
prospects before the cotton planters. Bat very sooa 
after the abolition of the slave trade, the Southern 
States increased their cultivation, and not being 
hampered by so many obstnictions to theiL- labor 
supply, the staple came down to a priofi which did 
not pay. Ruin was almost universal in Berbice, and 
Demerara was little better. 
Only sugar was left when coffee and cotton fell ; 
it was the survival of the fitt sc. Can we say today 
that there is the least chance of success with any other 
product? But, if there is hope, will it not be for a new 
body of men in new districts? Sach being the indica- 
tions, what a sad thing it would be for the colony if 
the coast plantations were ruined. When cotton 
fell, coffee and sugar were left. When coffee fell, sugar 
was left. If sugar fills, what then? 
SOIL AND NATURAL FERTILITY. 
A Rock is never a very simple aifglomeration of 
chemical combinations, but the overlying soil — the 
dark, humus-stained, bacteria- riddled, worm-gathered, 
semi organic mass — is a much more highly complex 
problem alike for the scientist and practical farmer. 
The former has to say how rooks can bast be ren- 
dered into fertile soils, and the latter has to carry 
the work into practice. The soils of rocks may be 
roughly classed. 
1. — The granitic soils are generally poor in phos- 
phoric acid and destitute of lime. 
2. — Clay soils are compact and tenacious, poor in 
phosphoric acid, but rich in potash. 
3. — The liassic soils are remarkably rich in phos- 
phoric acid and potash. 
4. — The calcareous soils are very fertile, but less 
tenacious than the preceding, 
5. — Ferruginous clays and sands are very poor 
soils, extremely deficient in lime and phosphoric acid. 
When fertility is merely consiaered, and the mojt 
practical way of gaining it in a given time, the soil 
problems go fav beyond any geological or chemical 
formulae we can express our thoughts in as yet. 
They cannot take into account the vital action of 
millions of bacteria, or of the ground borers from 
the mole to the smallest grub. Every borer great 
or small, opens the ground and lets in the air, and 
the oxygen and nitrogen in their freely mixed state 
in the atmosphere have each a work to do in soil 
fertility. It is little use telling the piactical agri- 
culturist that nitrogen is not taken into combination 
directly in a bare fallow. What is going on below 
the ground while the soil is kept free from vegeta- 
tion above? he demands, and is ready with a score 
of pointed questions at once. Why does soil grow 
richer and richer in proportion as it lies unused? 
Why does nitrogen gradually accumulate uuder per- 
manent grass ? VVhy does earth taken from a rich 
pea-growing soil, and lightly dusted over field sown 
with peas, produce a much heavier crop on the 
dressed portion ? If the peas themselves are steeped 
for some time in a solution made by a rich pea 
soil and water, why do the plants grow more vigorously 
than those that have been sown undressed ? 
The nitrogen-fixing bacteria are everywhere, but 
in grass land more than in tilth, and where yard 
manure or cattle droppings are plentiful they are 
soon doing their beneficent work, aided by a free 
flow of moisture and air. Strange though it may 
seen to the ordinary agriculturist, the soil which 
seems to him such a solid thing is little more than 
an open sieve for admitting air and water. Grass, 
and good grass, too, can grow in ''living water," 
it is the stagnant pool of cold water choked with 
carbonic acid gas and mar.<h gas, which prevents 
vegetation by excluding oxygen. Fresh water flows 
away into the earth drawing air after it, no small 
portion being entangled in it mechanically as well 
a: absorbed. There cannot be a flow of water without 
a corresponding flow and inrush of air, and the 
soil requires both equally to reach the highest fertility. 
She nitrates, which gradually accumulating iu the 
ground would destroy the activity of bacterial life, 
are wished away, while carbonic acid gas is forced 
downwards to escape by the nnder-drains, which 
are specially valualjle in carrying it off, and ihere- 
f-ice should on'y be sunk at a reasonable depth in 
retentive clay land. Few men, indeed, even when 
geologists and chemists, appreciate fully the action 
of ram and air together as inakirs of fertility. 
Bacteria cannot work without moisture, and the 
all-important nitrifying bacteria cannot work without 
a chiuiging inflow of moisture and air. The soil, 
from its open state and sieve-like capacity, provides 
both conditions in ordinary seasons. The finding of 
good flows of water when wells are sunk, spsaks 
with the clearest voice to those who can understand 
about the double aeration of the soil, caused by 
every shower, from Che air it drives before it and 
draws after in its train. No wonder, then, that a 
heavy thunderstorm will make the buiut-up pastures 
a lovely emerald green in the driest seasons. The 
bacteria had been working in the warm soil till 
the Want of moisture and accumulation of nitrates 
prevented further vital action. Then came the time 
of short brown grass, whi h " burned " more and 
more each day of i)villiant sunshine. Broken Woather 
and heavy rains dissolve the poisoning nitrate-i, feed 
plants with their rich store of food, and set the 
bacteria free to w^rk by soaking everything with 
fecundating moisture and pare, cool air, wnich it 
brought entangled with it or in its train. Tne plants 
feed on the waste products of bacCerial life, and the 
baoteri I are busy purifying the soil by consuming 
all dead animal and plant substances, bringing them 
slowly into suspension and solution, ready for 
nitrification; fitting them for beginning the round 
of the life cycle once again. It is not much 
the presence of air in the soil as the presence of 
pure water and air together that makes a soil 
nacurally fertile ; and when the w.iter is from the 
clouds it comes in the best shape, whether it be 
fluid or snow. Let those who fi id artificial manures 
cheap and paying use them as long as they will, 
or the soil will allow of it ; but a good supply of 
organic matter in the soil seems to be nature s way 
of obtaining a growing fertility. The best manure 
yet made is that which the farm supplies through 
the bodies of its stock when fed on rich food. It 
is a good substitute for the work of the forest in 
making constant additions of organic matter to the 
soil. If a uniform and steady growth in quality 
is the thing aimed at, there seems lo other way 
in obtaining it, when the soil is a suBBcieutly rich 
loam to retain a store of plant' food. Tnere are 
sands so sieve-like and clays so stiff, that in one 
case the water washes everything away, and in the 
other it cannot enter to do its work at all. A Siiff 
clay may grow good grass in time with 
care, but a barren sand is past praying for; if you 
add olay and lime in the right proportions to make 
it fairly good, you are buying your land a second 
time over for self or landlord, and can never hope 
for a return in on the outlay. "It never pays to 
make land where it can be bought ready in the 
neighbourhooJ. Give me a clay, or loam lying on 
the clay, the richer the better, and I will try to 
make che thing go ; but a barren sand will hold 
nothing." It would be impossible for most of us 
in Jamaica to get enough animal manure of this 
kind. In the north where there are large cities 
where fat stock is in great and constant demand 
for the butcher, it pays farmers to stable or yard 
their stock and feed them by band on highly con- 
centrated nitrogenous food, such as cotton seed 
meal, mixed with more bulky foods like hay, and 
gav ^ the manure, which is very rich in fertilizing 
elements, to apply to their fields; thus a double 
object is gained and there is no waste ; the added 
weight of the cattle by the consumption of rich 
food pays the feeder, and the refuse saves the pur- 
chase of fertilizers. What we must do, is to add 
potassic and phosphatic artificial fertilizers to otu 
