On British Guiana Cane Soils and Artificial 
Manures. 
Bij Ernest 'E. H. Francis. 
T the present time little or no definite knowledge 
is obtainable respecting the most suitable arti- 
ficial manure for promoting the growth of the 
sugar-cane in this colony. The difficulty of selecting 
a special chemical fertilizer adapted to any particular 
soil is easily and systematically evaded by using 
manures of a highly complex nature, such as guano, or 
fish, or blood, manure, or fancy priced mixtures compounded 
of ingredients known only to the makers. Like that 
wonderful panacea, the mithridate of old, made from some 
sixty or so of the most incongruous ingredients, it is odd 
indeed if the right one is not amongst them. But simpli- 
city now reigns in medicine ; and the practice prevails of 
using some one substance — the one required — or as few 
as may be, in place of the sixty taken haphazard. So it 
should be with manuring. The problem to be solved 
with regard to the right application of chemical manures 
is contained within a tolerably narrow and definite com- 
pass ; and when the magnitude of the interests centred 
in cane cultivation is considered, it affords matter for 
wonder that greater advancement has not been made 
towards its solution. The principal object of manuring 
is to supply those mineral matters essential to plant- 
growth that a soil lacks or is deficient in, and further to 
restore such as are removed by each successive crop ; 
