The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-25
addition of potassie and phosphated

addition of potassic and phosphated
manures.
Some excellent results have been
obtained in Madeira in a volcanic soil,
| poor in potash and in phosphoric acid,
but rich in nitrogen and better provid-
| ed With carbonate of lime than the
greater part of tropical soils, by the
application of complete manure,
testing:
Nitrogen. .......... 10 per cent
Potash. ..........-...20 per cent
Phosphoric acid. 49,. .16 per cent
This manure. which is a mixture of
very concentrated and very soluble
products, is applied in the proportion
OF so grammes per plant, equal to 1%
ounces in a trench made about eigh-
teen inches around the stem. The APP
plication of this manure is made twice
a year, so that each plant receives in
all 100 grammes of the mixture (31s
ounces).
ITO us this quantity appears too lit
tie. Also, it would be to the interest
of the planter to strengthen still more
the proportion of potash in the COM
plete manure by giving the whole of
the nitrogen under an organic form. as
oil-cake, guanos, fish manure, farm
yard manure, composts, etc.
I'VE advise the tria! of a manure
testing:
Potash. ..............20 per cent
Phosphoric acid. 10 per cent
This manure can be very easily pre-
pared by mixing for manuring hec-
tare planted with 1900 plants equal to
600 plants per acre. 400 kilos of sulphate
of potash. containing so per cent of po-
fash, 600 kilos of mineral superphos-
phate, or the same quantity of basic
Stag, which would furnish at the same
time lime and phosphoric acid.
ITO reduce the expense of transport,
there would be equally an advantage
in giving the phosphoric acid in the
form of super-phosphate containing 45
per cent of phosphoric acid; there
would then be required 240 Kilogrammes
per hectare.
(These quantities, reduced to English
weights and measures, would be as
follows: 400 kflos of sulphate of potash
per hectare are equal to So pounds, and
this is equal to 344 pounds per acre.
Six hundred kilos of mineral super
per hectare, and this is equal to $50
pounds per acre; 240 kilos of the strong
er super phosphate. generally known
as Professor Wagner's double phos-
phate,' is equal to SIS pounds per hec-
tare, represented by pip pounds per
acre. I take the standard adopted by
Professor Crookes in his translation of
the famous work on chemical man.
ures by George Ville)
THE mixture can be easily made
without there being any fear of loss
OF fertilizing materials. 1t should be
employed in the proportion of 400 or 800
grammes per plant, according as the
preference may be given to the double
r-phosphate or to the common
kind. equal to IA or, and to lib. 5
o., respectively Care must be taken
to place the manure in trench made
around the stem, to avoid placing it In
direct contact with the latter, SO as
to prevent accidents.
This manure costs at the maximum
200 francs per hectare, about one PEN
ny-ha1f-penny e cents) per plant with
out counting the heterogeneous manures.
1t is a very small expense, which win
be largely compensated by the regular
ity of and increased yield in the crops"
Considering that the banana is a
herbaceous plant and that. like all her
baceous plants it requires nitrates in
the early stages of its growth. the
translator q. Neish, MIDI, says in the |
Journal of the Jamaica Agricultural
Society that in cultivating a few speci- !
mems of the Chinese banana CMusa
he sets out two closely /
planted circles of the cow-bean wig |
ma simensis) around each banana so /
as to furnish the nitrates that may be |
required on digging in the beans at /
the period of Towering. Doubtless the I
plants, so plentiful in their /
variety in Jamaica, would be of essen |
tial service if not in rotation. at least /
as an auxiliary and ameliorating crop t
in the cultivation of bananas.