The implements of agriculture required are for the most part few and
simple, for no high tillage is necessary, the luxuriance of vegetation
being so great that most of the products of the soil will grow
indiscriminately throughout the year, and the only care of the
husbandman, after the first preparation of the soil, is to keep down
the vast growth of weeds, which might stifle the crops.

In tropical regions there is less demand for manures than in temperate
climates, but still there are many additions to the soil that may
profitably be made.

Firstly, that most important principle, which has only recently been
practically inculcated, is in too many quarters entirely neglected,
namely, returning to the soil the component parts taken off by various
crops, and which is so generally practised in all good agricultural
districts, by a careful rotation of crops. Liebig has well pointed out
this: "It must be admitted (he says), as a principle of agriculture,
that those substances which have been removed from a soil must be
completely restored to it; and whether this restoration be effected by
means of excrements, ashes, or bones, is in a great measure a matter
of indifference." Again he remarks, "We could keep our fields in a
constant state of fertility by replacing every year as much as we
remove from them in the form of produce; but an increase of fertility,
and consequent increase of crop, can only be obtained when we add more
to them than we take away." Of all natural manures, therefore, the
best for each description of plant is its own refuse, or ashes; enough
of these can seldom, however, be obtained. But, as far as they can be
restored, this principle is beginning to be acted upon by the sugar
planters of the West Indies, who employ the waste leaves and ashes of
the expressed stalk of the cane, after it has been used as fuel, to