6 
CHAPTER V. 
EXPERIMENT PLOTS. 
The question of experimental manuring of cocon its which had been so often ventilated 
in the Colony was at last taken in hand. A special vote of Rs 300 per annum was granted in 
1916 for that purpose. Many discussions took place, in 1914 and 1915, at meetings of the 
Agricultural Beard and of special Committees as to whether the experiment was to be made 
■on Government land or not. The attitude of many official members was that Government 
should not waste money in manuring land belonging to private owners. This would have been 
an argument of some weight if on Government land there were spots suitable for such experi¬ 
ments. But such is not the case. However, I have been directed to take up a piece of land at 
Long Islanu, where the soil is worn out and the ground sloping considerably. As the vote is 
only Rs 300 and includes the wages of a man in charge at the rate of ts 13 a month the 
amount invested in these experiments is a mere bagatelle in comparison with the benefit which 
ought to be derived from them by the Government and the whole community. For this reason 
I was in favour of the experiments being made on ground more level and homogenous and 
repeated in various localities by different planters—Government supplying the imported chemi¬ 
cal manures only. In that event the interest of the planters would be more safeguarded and 
the Government would save money in the long run, as, to be conclusive, experiments made in 
poor sloping and heterogenous ground have to cover a far longer period of time than in well 
selected spots. In the matter of agricultural experiments the best plan would be to purchase 
an estate in working order and to carry out the experiments on a large scale, with the money 
derived from the produce of the estate. The question of research work involves a certain 
amount of unusual expendituie which in the eyes of the majority of the planters of the Colony 
is still not justified. This is the method adopted in Trinidad and other Colonies, where Go¬ 
vernment owns large estates. Otherwise the experiments are made on a rather shy and in¬ 
sufficient scale in order to suit the opinion of influential persons who are not yet convinced of 
their necessity. One often hears in this Colony that such experiments should be made in a 
practical way and not on purely scientific lines. I have endeavoured however to show that 
experiments which are not scientiHc ai e not experiments at all. It is a mathematical problem 
which has to be solved, in taking into account a series of factors, climatic, cultural and com¬ 
mercial for each one of which provision has to be made accurately in order to deduce after¬ 
wards the proper meaning of the results obtained. If the cause of any observed difference is 
to be explained, only one factor must be varied at a time, otherwise no one can disentangle 
the results and attribute any difference in yield to any one cause. As trees growing in a given 
plantation present individual variation in their development which is dependent on soils con¬ 
ditions or is a consequence of their distance apart, it is obvious that all plots must be as 
nearly equal as possible. Otherwise an experimental error must be allowed for and the mean 
error of this kind has been calculated at Rothamstead to be lOo/o, that is to say, the yield may 
be either lOo/o above or lOo/o below what it should have been. With these points in view it is 
proposed lu give the fullest details on the experiments started in order to invite efficient criticism. 
At Long Island the 13 following plots have been arranged during the year: 
No. of plot. 
No. 
Manure used. 
1 ... ... No manure or control plot. 
2 ... ... Green manuring with velvet beans. 
3 ... ... Green manuring plus guano (800 lbs per acre). [acre.) 
4 ... ... Green manuring plus guano and potash (ashes 800 lbs per 
6 ... ... Green manuring, guano, patash and lime (1270 lbs per acre) 
6 ... ... Eish guano (600 lbs), fresh sea weeds (3 tons per acre). 
7 ... ... No manure or control plot.• 
8 ... ... Same as 2. 
9 ... ... Same as 3. 
10 ... ... « Same as 4. 
11 ... ... Same as 5. 
„ 12 ... ... Same as 6. 
„ 13 ... ... No manure or control plot. 
Potash has had to be used in the form of coconut husk ashes, owing to the impossibility 
of importing Sulphate of Potash. The land is, as stated above, sloping and to avoid the 
manure of one plot being washed down by rain to another plot, the length of the plots (50 
feet wide) was made parallel to the slope and not at right angles to it. The number of trees 
per plot (all of which are about 30 years old) is the following 
No. 
of trees. 
Area in plot in sq. feet. 
Ajrea occupied b) 
Plot No. 
1 
12 
11,100 
926 
2 
17 
14,800 
870 
yy 
3 
20 
14,800 
740 
yy 
4 
14 
14,800 
1,057 
yy 
5 
12 
14,800 
1,233 
yy 
6 
16 
14,800 - 
925 
yy 
r« 
1 
11 
14,800 - 
1,345 
yy 
8 
17 
14,800 - 
870 
i 
yy 
9 
< 17 
13,875 t 
816 
yy 
30 
10 
12,950 
1,295 
yy 
11 
16 
12,025. 
751 
yy 
12 
21 
10,000 
476 
yy 
13 
13 
8,916 - 
686 
