, 1885-02-04

it would be folly, not to strain every nerve
to recover the lost ground. st. Croix
planters are not exempt from the struggle
and the difficulties, to which agriculturists
in all countries have to accommodate them
selves, and the Importation of artificial
manures is not nearly so great a difficulty
as the difficulties with which their equals
in many other parts of the world have to
contend. 1t is difficult for many, of course
it is difficult, to find the money for purchas-
ing the manure, but difficulty is not i'm.
possibility, and this less than a great many
others. Besides, the more the conviction
of the necessity of manuring, and the look
out and demand for manure extends, the
more will it become evident, that the
source of supply existing in the island be.
comes far from equal to what is required.
The so called squatters in the environs of
Christiansted, whose area under cultivation
increases from year to year., understand
full we'll, from practice and experience, the
advantages OF manuring, and a good deal
of the manure which for some years has
found its way from the Stock Estates of
East End to be sold to the Sugar Estates
down the country, is being made use of by
them.
Mr.. Hagemann states two very interest.
ing, and no doubt to many of our readers
novel facts, the one relating to China, the
other to our neighbour the island of Porto
Rico.
In China, he says, a law of remote anti
putty makes 1t compulsory on the agricul-
turist, to SOW in rows; the distance be-
tween the rows is prescribed by officials
specially appointed for the purpose, in
such manner, that if the heap of manure
dispOSabie for the extent of land is large
0nI of Crnn1 CtJo1tT- &hn o,14ix-ofN NV 10 NNnr
mitted to place the rows near each other, il
it is small and inferior in quality, he has to
keep them at a greater distance. Through
this means China has been enabled not
only to preserve, but also to incrcaS, the
richness OF the land, so that it has gradual
ly become capable of feeding a population
which WE call excessive.
His statement regarding Porto Rico is
still more striking and instructive. He
says, that in that island the planters have
been enabled by means of irrigation to
carry cut the principle of exhausting more
rapidly and intensely. By the process Of
irrigating the cane fields, the plant has
been provided with one of it's essential
requisites, water. The plant has thereby
been enabled to grow quicker and larger,
consequently to take up from the soil more
and more of the nOuriShing matter contain.
ed i'll it, and as none of this matter thus
absorbed by the plant was given back to i.
the soil, the result of the irrigation has
been to impoverish the land much quicker
and much more effectualIy than would
have been otherwise the ease. The whole
of the land close to the towns, f. i. Ponce
on the South side of Porto Rico, has been
thereby so much exhausted, that the Es.
tates i'll the vicinity of the towns are com
pletely abandoned, the buildings and works
are in ruins, and the land unfit for cane
culture, and that even common grass will
scarcely grow any longer on it. Mr.. Hage.
mann adds, that similar effects of irriga-
ton have shewn themselves on many mea-
dows in Denmark, where in order to pre-
serve the proper growth of the grass it has
become necessary to apply manure.
Nothing, in my opinion, can be imagined
so qualified to illustrate the true relations /.
between the plant growing on the soil and
the nOuriShing matter mixed up with the
other constituents IN the soil, as this state
ment of what has taken place in Porto
Rico. The soil has not, as in Judea, i'll
Italy, in France and Spain, on the slope
at the foot of high mountains been aoGshed
away so as to leave the underlying rock
exposed; instead of such violent action,
the water has played a more treacherous
part: it has been satisfied to enable the.
canes planted in the soil to suck up with
an unnatural vigour the valuable ingredi-