72 
In  the  Land  of  Ginger. 
/  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    February,  1898. 
will  also  sweeten  the  ground,  correcting  sourness  ;  and,  moreover, 
it  destroys  insect  pests.  Some  cultivators  will  only  grow  ginger  in 
freshly-cleared  woodland,  and  next  year  they  move  on  to  a  new 
clearing ;  but  although  in  this  way  they  get  very  fine  ginger,  it  is  at 
the  expense  of  forest  land  which  would  require  a  heavy  outlay  and 
perhaps  a  term  of  100  years  to  restore.  Albert  Town  was  not  long 
ago  a  great  centre  for  the  cultivation,  but  I  was  told  there  that 
growers  had  already  got  as  far  as  14  miles  further  inland. 
"  Ginger  can  be,  and  is,  grown  in  many  places  year  after  year  on 
the  same  ground.  An  intelligent  cultivator  at  Borbridge  stated 
that  he  knew  of  ginger  growing  for  forty  years  in  the  same  patch. 
Sanford  Town  is  a  German  colony,  and  one  of  the  original  colonists, 
Somers,  an  active  old  man  of  eighty  years  of  age,  has  been  cultivat- 
ing ginger  and  arrowroot  there  since  his  youth.  He  and  the  other 
colonists  have  been  in  the  habit  of  planting  a  small  patch  one  year, 
leaving  it  to  ratoon  as  long  as  it  was  profitable,  then  throwing  it 
up  or  growing  other  plants  until,  after  a  term  of  years,  they  again 
plant  the  same  patch  with  ginger.  This  is  an  irregular  rotation  of 
crops;  'plant  ginger,'  the  product  of  planting,  is  of  better  quality 
than  the  ratoons,  and  the  ratoons  in  each  succeeding  year  are 
inferior.  When  the  ground  is  too  poor  to  grow  '  white  ginger,' 
the  '  blue  ginger/  the  inferior  variety,  can  be  grown. 
"  More  depends  upon  the  curing  of  ginger,  considering  the  crop  as 
a  livelihood,  than  soil.  I  believe  that  the  badly-cured  ginger 
brought  sometimes  to  the  market  is  due  to  wet  weather,  rather 
than  to  want  of  care. 
"  The  export  of  ginger  is,  on  the  whole,  on  the  increase,  but  if  this 
is  accompanied  by  the  gradual  destruction  of  woods  and  forests,  it 
is  not  a  subject  of  congratulation." 
An  examination  of  the  exhausted  soil  revealed  the  fact  that  it 
was  deficient  in  organic  matter,  lime,  phosphoric  acid  and  soda. 
Attempts  made,  at  my  suggestion,  to  supply  these  deficiencies  by 
the  use  of  market  fertilizers  of  various  kinds  were  not  productive  of 
any  favorable  results.  Stable  manure  alone  resulted  in  a  failure,  as 
likewise  did  the  use  of  a  bat  guano  found  on  the  island.  The  use  of 
a  marl,  especially  when  mixed  with  stable  manure,  was  a  partial 
success. 
The  Jamaica  Agricultural  Society,  in  1895,  began  a  series  of  prac- 
tical experiments  which  are  still  in  progress.    Their  first  results, 
