, 1872-06-22

to ferment for six or eight months or more. The
surface OF such a heap may be covered with cane
or banana leaves to prevent too much rain pene-
tratlng into it. When such u compost heap is
properly fermented and broken down it forms q
valuable manure for the Cane. Every plantation
should have q certain space devoted to the forma-
ton of this compost heap, which should contain
the weeds, the leaves, and crushed Cane (when
not used as fueD, megass ashes and stable refuse,
as wellas refuse from the boiling houses and stills.
The more weeds and green leaves, the more stable
dung and urine should be added to it. If the
whole is we'll Incorporated, and the heap c%onstruc-
ted with Judgment, SO that the oldest portion can
be used before the new portions are touched, it is
quite possible to make it a permanently valuable
adjunct to the estate. If it causes annoyance
during the heating, by evolution of a disagreeable
smell, this may be entirely avoided by covering
the entire heap with 2 or 3 inches of earth little
or no odour can find its way through such q COW
ering.
Good f~armyard manure has been for ages the
only perfect manure known, and until the year
l647, the only product that could enable US to re-
store q partially exhausted soil to fertility. In
that year Professor Polstorff published a series of
valuable experiments, in which he found that ma
nure made from the excreta of animals, compared
with various other products, always gives the high
est results. Such q manure has within the last
few years been obtained at BlOxwitch, in Stafford
shire, and under the name of "Urban Manure is
beginning, l believe, to be somewhat extensively
used in our Cane fields. 1t is very similar in COM
position to stable manure itself, except that in
stead of containing 60 or 20 per cent. of water, its
amount of moisture rarely exceeds IL to Ia per
cent, so that it can be transported as economical
ly as Peruvian guano.
The composition of this Urban Cane manure
does not astonish US by an enormous amount of
nitrogen or phosphates, but by its completeness,
that is, by the presence in it of all the ingredients
required by the plant, and in the best form
for assimilation. 1t can be distinguished from all
artificial manures by its faculty of yielding a GER
tain portion of its organic substance to rectifed
spirit of wine, and so forming a dark coloured So
luton. Some remarkable effects having been OBJ
tanned with it at tho Royal Horticultural Gardens
q few years dg0, when it was first made in England,
attracted the attention of the owners of some large
West Indian estates, and it was submitted TO the
testof experiment in ID Jamaica, Barbados, and Dem
erara. AS far as | am able to judge from the re-
suits already obtained, | am Of opinion that it will
be soon very extensively known and used.
That this is the kind of manure which Nature
evidently intended for our use is seen very plainly
in some old experiments made by Giobert aad Lam
padius, now almost forgotten. Giobert mixed to-
gether the four substances-silica, magnesia, alu-
nina. and lime II tho proper proportion, as he
thought, tosconstitute a fertile soil. He planted
vegetables IN this artificial soil and supplied them
with wster but none of them grow until he moist
oned the soil with water from q dunghill. Lam
padius made a similar experiment some time after
wards, and met with exactly the same result.
The manner in which ~night-soil became known as
on active fertilissr is lost in tho mist of byegone
times, but we may onjecture, with London, that
man found it necessary to bury it in the earth to
avoid disagreeable odour, and soon observed its
remarkable effects on vegetation.
On some plantations where new manures have
been experimental with, it has been customary to
Judge of their action by the yield of Sugar in the
an average of some five or six years, it would per
haps be a trustworthy method of proceeding but
as it is, there are so many operations between tho
manure and the Sugar itself, that putting aside the
influence of wet or dry seasons, &C., it is a very
fallacious test for a single season. 1t is better to
Judge in some other way, if possible, of the guam
lity and quality of the crop.