exhibit, by way of contrast, the drafts made
by a relatively good crop of two notoriously soil-impoverishing
crops--tobacco and corn--and, on the other hand, the drafts made by
an equivalent average cotton crop--a product considered to make but
light drains upon sources of soil fertility.

A proportionate tobacco crop of 1,000 kilos per hectare will withdraw
from the soil (reduced to the same standard of weights adopted by
Mr. Cochran)--

Pounds.

Nitrogen 168
Potash 213
Phosphoric acid 23

An equivalent crop of shelled corn, say, of 125 bushels per hectare,
will withdraw--

Pounds.

Nitrogen 200
Potash 135
Phosphoric acid 75

while a relative crop of lint cotton of 237 kilos (700 pounds) per
hectare [6] will only exhaust, in round numbers--

Pounds.

Nitrogen 114
Potash 70
Phosphoric acid 30

There is an analogy between these four products that makes them
all comparable, in so far as all are largely surface feeders, and,
as experience shows that there can be no continuing success with
the last three that does not include both cultivation and manuring,
we may use the analogy to infer a like indispensable necessity for
the successful issue of the first.

Cultivation as a manurial factor should, therefore, not be overlooked,
and all the more strongly does it become emphasized by the very
difficulties that for some years to come must beset the Philippine
planter in the way of procuring direct manures.

When it comes to the specific application of manures and how to make
the most of our resources, we shall have to turn back to the analysis
of the nut and note that, relatively to other crops, it makes small
demands for nitrogen. At the same time it must not be forgotten that
these chemical determinations only refer to the fruit and that,
with the present incomplete data and lack of investigation of the
constituent parts of root, stem, leaf, and branch, we have nothing
to guide us but what we may infer from the behavior of the plant and
its relationship to plants of long-deferred fruition, whose manurial
wants are well understood.

It is now the most approved orchard practice to encourage an early
development of leaf and branch by the liberal application of nitrogen,
whose stimulant actions upon growth are