1883 .] 
AMElilCAX AGRICULTURIST. 
359 
Tropical Fanning. 
There is but little dignity about farming in the 
•tropics. It is true, there are great plantations of 
sugar and coffee, but the owners of them are either 
Fig. 1.— A TAM MERCHANT. 
companies, formed abroad, and represented by 
overseers and officers, or proprietors who are far 
too aristocratic to touch a hoe-handle, or harness 
a team. The white man does not work in the 
warm latitudes. The farmer proper of the tropics 
is in the main little better than the slave, whose 
place he occupies. In the West Indies he is in¬ 
variably a negro ' on the continent of South or 
Central America a half-breed, or rather a hybrid, 
the result of a couple of centuries of Indian, 
Spaniard, and negro cross-breeding. But where- 
ever he is, he is always wretchedly ignorant and 
poor. He always farms in a very small way, and 
by the most primitive methods. An acre of ground 
constitutes a large farm. He never plows, the hoe 
and spade being his only tools. He raises yams 
(tig. 1), and kindred indigenous vegetables, and 
very good crops of them, too, for he has a fertile 
soil to aid him. He never plants on poor ground. 
If he lives near a running stream, he generally has 
numerous trees of the banana and plantain. Though 
these grow wild in the tropics, they are improved 
by cultivation. The wild bananas root close to the 
water’s edge, and a freshet may carry the plants 
away. We have often seen a rude canoe slip by on 
some South American stream at early morning, 
carrying an old squaw, in a scarlet cotton gown, 
and a cart-wheel hat, with a roll of tobacco-leaf 
between her teeth, and two bunches of bananas 
for cargo (fig. 2). These bunches are all she has to 
sell, and she will travel twenty miles to dispose of 
them. The old woman is never without a naked 
boy and a lean dog for company, and when the tide 
is fair, the party float along, carried by the current, 
and propelled by the wind blowing on a big plan¬ 
tain leaf, which the boy holds upright, for a sail. 
Farming to such people is simply a means to au 
end, and that end is a bare living. They eat what 
little they raise, aud only go to market in order to 
obtain such necessities, as the little hardware or 
ammunition they use, or the scanty clothing they 
wear. If the tropical public had to depend on 
them for material subsistence, they would starve. 
There are small farmers or market gardeners, 
who supply the market. Twice a week they ap¬ 
pear in towu with their products, the extent of 
which would make an American farmer smile. It 
may be a donkey-load of vegetables, or a basket of 
fruit, carried on the back or head. Its value never 
exceeds two dollars, aud is often less than one. 
The heaviest loads seen in a tropical market, are 
those of green fodder—grass, freshly cut, and piled 
up on the back of a patient donkey (figs. 3 and 4). 
On the summit the owner lounges at ease, while 
his poor brute hobbles along, directed by blows of 
a long pole on his ears. Viewed from the rear, 
the aspect of the combination of man, beast, aud 
grass is very curious indeed. Green fodder is in 
constant demand, as everyone, with any preten¬ 
sions to gentility, keeps horses or saddle-mules. 
Another curiosity of tropical farming is the yam. 
There are two species ; the finer, which is a very 
fair substitute for potatoes, when it is mashed, is 
small and succulent; the coarser is large, stringy, 
and tasteless. The stranger, who sees these latter 
stacked up in a market place, invariably takes 
them for firewood (fig. 1), aud they are often 
dry and fibrous enough to serve for burning. 
Such products as the small farmers of the tropics 
raise, are all easily cultivated. Crops which re¬ 
quire care, such as cocoa and coffee, are left to the 
Fig. 3.— A LOAD OF HAT. 
more enterprising and enlightened foreigner, with 
a sprinkling of the higher class natives. Even 
sugar cane is sparsely grown by the small farmer. 
The little he does raise, is for sweetening his water 
and coffee. He simply 
crushes the cane by a prim¬ 
itive method from time to 
time, as he requires it. 
The unclarified juice,which 
he calls gvarapo , is his 
only substitute for sugar. 
Com is raised to feed the 
horses and mules, and to 
bake into cakes. The grass- 
fodder is too light for a 
constant diet, and draught 
or pack animals have to be 
fed some corn daily, when 
at work. For baking, the 
corn is simply pounded in 
a hollow stone, mixed with 
water and salt, and cooked 
on a hot stone or iron plate , 
and usually rubbed with raw red pepper to flavor it. 
No more picturesque or wretched picture can be 
conceived, thau one of the little farms of South or 
Central America. A hut of palm boards, with a 
rotten roof of palm branches, swarming with bats, 
scorpions, and other vermin, constitutes the farm- 
Fig. 2.— GOING TO MARKET. 
er’s home (fig. 5). The floor is of earth, the beds 
are frameworks of boards, on which the inmates 
stretch without the effete formality of undres¬ 
sing. Hammocks are not as often seen as one 
would fancy. All travellers, however, carry them, 
and for a dime obtain the privilege of slinging 
them from the beams. Many farm houses are 
mere sheds, with the sides open to the winds. The 
Fig. 4.— REAR OF LOAD. 
farms themselves present none of the pleasing 
aspects of cultivated ground. The different crops 
grow in patches, it is true, but rank, uuweeded, and 
without care. Nature provides a soil so rich, that 
man needs to give it but little labor, when, after 
years, the ground is worked out, the farmer opens 
another patch, for all is free. 
Such a laud as this would be a paradise for the 
intelligent and energetic Northern farmer, but for 
the fact that in this enervating and malarial climate 
hard labor is deadly. The white man, who settles 
here and works as he is accustomed to labor in 
the cooler climate at home, soon dies, and only he 
who adapts himself to the listless climate, survives. 
Green Manures in the Garden. 
In a properly managed garden the soil is kept 
constantly at work. If it is not producing a crop, 
it should not be left to grow up to weeds, but be 
sown to seme crop that may be turned under and 
serve as a green manure. This will not only pre¬ 
vent a growth of weeds, but afford a mass of 
green material which, if turned under, will greatly 
increase the fertility of the soil. What shall it be ? 
While buckwheat, clover and other plants are used 
as green manures for farm crops, we have yet 
much to learn as to the best green manure crops 
for the garden. The late Mr. W. N. White (author 
of “ Gardening for the South ”) found that on 
soils already in fair condition, Lucern (Alfalfa) 
sowed broadcast, was the best plant for the pur¬ 
pose. Where the season devoted to the crop is short, 
probably mustard or rape would answer a good 
purpose. In the Southern States, whether for field 
or garden, the Cow-pea takes precedence of all 
other plants as a green manure. From our experi¬ 
ence with this plant, we are sure that it is worthy 
of trial in Northern gardens. It requires a long 
season to ripen its seeds, but as a green manure 
Fig. 5.— the farmer’s home. 
the seeds are not needed, and it will produce, in 
Northern localities, au abundant crop of herbage, 
which analysis shows to be rich in fertilizing ele¬ 
ments. Common field peas will afford a rich green 
manure. The gardener should make it his aim to 
occupy his land with something, if not with the 
best possible plants for green manure, then what¬ 
ever will prevent the growth of a crop of weeds. 
