339 
equator. But one is not more absurd than the other Many yeai s ago 
before the present Botanic Gardens were started there was a great 
advertising of Prickly Comfrey as a highly suitable plant for fodder 
improving the soil, etc. Many planters it is said spent a good dea of 
money on this plant, a native of southern Europe and of course lost 
every cent they spent on it. . , , ., 
A good fertilizer for the tropics is certainly badly wanted but it 
is not in the Pahearctic region, i.e., Europe, Northern Asia and North 
America that we need look for it. It must be a tropical p ant, or at 
least a subtropical one, and it should also be a leguminous plant 
At present we have no plants which are completely suited in 
everv way. Crotalaria striata is often highly spoken of. It does not 
it seems to me thrive in damp low-lying ground and seems more at 
home in sandy places. It is also a slow spreader. The branches are 
too erect to cover the ground nicely and its seeds are persistently 
destroved by a weevil. Tephrosia purpurea used in Java for this 
purpose is rather woody and makes woody stems branching above. 
Still it might be grown short and cut back, and prove satisfactory. It 
grows very readily and does not seem to be attacked by beetles or 
other pests. Mimosa, the sensitive plant has the objection of course 
that it is thorny. Indigo distinctly improves soil and the rubbei 
trees grown among the Chinese indigo in the Chassenau Estate 
in Singapore are very much better than those grown there elsewhere 
but it must be said that the Chinese do work the ground between the 
trees and use a good lot of manure. _ . J7 
The little Desmodiims, D. triflora and D. heterophylla so com- 
mon on road-sides and in grass plots, improve the soil wherever they 
grow, but thev are rather small and the collection of their seed is 
rather troublesome. A bigger herbaceous tropical Desmodium if it 
could be found would probably be the tost thing we could get, Des- 
, miliums correspond most nearly of tropical plants to clovers and 
and melilots, but most of them are rather shrubby and do not fill the 
ground very well. Some however are herbaceous and creeping, and 
perhaps we may be able to get a suitable plant from Brazil or Central 
Africa, but certainly not from temperate regions. h N R 
Since writing the above I hear that the Crotalaria has done very 
well in some parts of the peninsula. Can some planter who has had 
experience of it give some account of it. Ed. 
COCONUT-PLANTING TERRITORY 
OF PAPUA. 
(From particulars supplied by Mr. N. R. Schroder to" Datgety'sReview ’') 
The interest which is being aroused in the Commonwealth at the 
present time by the possibilities of the territory of Papua for coconut 
and rubber cultivation has induced Mr. IS . R. Schroder, of Milne Ba\ , 
Papua to send us some particulars of the former industry, which we 
have pleasure in publishing for the information of any intending planters. 
