The system of agriculture, and modes of tillage, &c., of separate countries in the Eastern and Western hemisphere, notwithstanding their similarity of climate, are as opposite as if each country belonged to a different zone; and yet much may be learned by one of the other.

The only essentially useful division of seasons in countries within the tropics is into a wet and dry season, the former being the period of germination, the latter that of fructification.

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 manure their cane-fields.  The vine growers of Germany and the Cape also bury the cuttings of their vines around the roots of the plants.  The cinnamon grower of the East returns the waste bark and cuttings of the shoots to the soil.  And in the coco-nut groves of Ceylon, the roots of the trees are best manured with the husks of the nuts and decomposed poonac, or the refuse cake, after the oil has been expressed from the pulp.  Analysis of soils is, perhaps, not so essential in countries where virgin land is usually in abundance, and the luxuriance of vegetation furnishes itself, by decomposition, abundant materials for replenishing the fertility of the soil.  But there are some substances, such as muriate of soda, gypsum, phosphate, and other compounds of lime, which may be advantageously applied.  Guano and expensive artificial manures, are seldom required, and, indeed, will not repay the planters for importing.