he can begin to realize for
the time and labor expended.

But there are expedients to which the planter may have recourse
which, if utilized, may return every dollar of cultural outlay. By
the use of a wise rotation he can not only maintain his land in a good
productive condition but realize a good biennial crop that will keep
the plantation from being a financial drag. The rotation that occurs
to me as most promising on the average cocoanut lands of these Islands
would be, first, a green manure crop, followed by corn and legumes,
succeeded by cotton, and then back to green manures.

To make the first green crop effective as a manure, both lime and
potash are essential--the former to make available the nitrogen we
hope to gather, and the potash in order to secure the largest and
quickest growth of the pulse we are to raise for manurial purposes.

Both these elements are generally in good supply in our cocoanut lands;
but, if there is uncertainty upon this point, both should be supplied,
in some form. Fortunately, the former is cheap and abundant in most
parts of the Archipelago, and, when well slaked, may be freely applied
with benefit, at the rate of a ton or even more to the hectare.

In default of the mineral potash salts, the grower must seek unleached
wood ashes, either by burning his own unused jungle land to procure
them or by purchasing them from the neighbor who has such land to
burn over. If located on the littoral, he will carefully collect
all the seaweed that is blown in, although in our tropical waters
the huge and abundant marine algae are mostly lacking. Such as are
found, however, furnish a not inconsiderable amount of potash, and,
in the extremities to which planters remote from commercial centers
are driven, no source is too inconsiderable to be overlooked.

The first green crop selected will be one known to be of tropical
origin which, with fair soil conditions, will not fail to give a good
yield. He may with safety try any of the native rank-growing beans,
or cowpeas, soja, or velvet beans; or, if these are not procurable, he
has at command everywhere an unstinted seed supply of Cajanus indicus,
or of Clitorea ternatea, which will as well effect the desired end--to
wit, a great volume of humus and a new soil supply of nitrogen. It
remains for the planter to determine if the crop thus grown is to
be plowed under, or if he will use it to still better advantage by
partially feeding it, subject, as