Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 247, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1913 — AGRICULTURE IN THE CANAL ZONE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AGRICULTURE IN THE CANAL ZONE.

Tomatoes Ripening in February.

By H. H. BENNETT.

The climate of the Cap«i humid and typically tropical. With a very narrow annual range in temperature, but with marked contrasts in quantity of rainfall, the seasons are aptly divided into dry and rainy. The dry season • proper begins usually about the middle of December, although there are occasionally considerable variation from this. Fairly heavy precipitation sometimes occurs in the dry season, particularly on the Atlantic slope. Normally the season is characterised by cloudless skies, constant winds, and such scanty rainfall that many crops which made steady growth throughout the rainy months, hasten to maturity, practically cease to grow, or are completely parched unless irrigated. The prevailing type of corn planted about December 1 usually matures the latter part of February. Northern vegetables are unable to survive the dry season, but certain tropical species and many tropical fruits are uninjured or only slightly retarded in growth. Many trees shed their leaves at this time of the year, which corresponds to

winter or the dormant season of plants in the temperate zones. The growth of vegetation during the rainy season is phenomenal. An abandoned or untenanted clearing is quickly covered with a dense tangle of rapidly growing plants, while unseasoned fence posts cut from soft wood trees, driven into, or in many cases even laid upon the ground, take

root and Boon produce trees. Many northern flowers and vegetables are forced by the warm, humid climate Into wood and leaf growth at the expense of blossoms and fruit. Cowpeas and cucumbers fruit fairly well throughout the rainy season, so do also a number of other vegetables. Most of the indigenous plants make rapid development until checked by the scant supply of moisture attendant on the rapid drying out of soils in the dry Beason. Owing to the great surface Inequality qf the country and the imperviousness of the clayey soils, run-ofT is extremely rapid. With a few days of sunshine exposed soils dry out sufficiently to cause' excessive baking and cracking. When land is to be broken by plowing, advantage should be taken of the first favorable weather during the latter part of the wet season, due care being taken in all cases that the soil Is in proper condition

with respedt to moisture, that is not soggy or sticky. Among the important temperate zone vegetables that have been more or less successfully grown are cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce,* beans, cowpeas, radishes, carrots, peppers and pumpkins. In fact, there is little reason to doubt‘that with knowledge gained ' through systematic experimentation a sufficient supply of vegetables will be produced to Replace, in a large measure, the canned and coldstorage products at present consumed by the white inhabitants. It is true that many obstacles will be encountered in the establishment of an agriculture upon a modern businesslike basis, and much remains to be determined through experimentation, especially as to manurial treatment and as to the best varieties of native and foreign plants.

Canal Zone Farm House.

Cucumbers Ready for Shipment in February.

Section of Highway Constructed to Open the Rich Agricultural Lands of the Canal Zone.