168 ANNUAL REPOBT OF NEW-YORK 



observant cultivator will call to mind similar facts. In the appli- 

 cation of these principles to the cultivation of sugar cane, it may 

 be observed that, had it always been cultivated in a soil of but 

 moderate fertility, the crop would have attained its utmost expan- 

 sion at an earlier part of the season, thus allowing the whole 

 force of the termination of summer and the beginning of autumn to 

 be expended on the maturing of the secretions of the plant. It 

 is also in accordance with all experience that vegetation meets 

 the advance of the cool damp weather of autumn safely, almost 

 exactly in the proportion of its maturity. The full realization of 

 this idea, however, involves the use of such varieties of any plant 

 under cultivation as admit of sufficiently early maturity in ordi- 

 nary seasons. I am well aware how this subject presents itself 

 to the cultivator of the sugar cane. His first object is a heavy 

 crop of cane, in the hope of a correspondingly large return of 

 sugar. But, in a climate presenting all the imperfections of oui's 

 every cultivator must make his choice between a larger crop of 

 possibly diseased cane, or a smaller one of probably healthier. 

 Sugar canes grown in very rich soils are found to be inferior in 

 quality of juice of which a double quantity is needed to make a 

 given amount of sugar. (See Patent Office report, 1855, p. 275.) 

 This is an indication that much manuring will prove injurious in 

 such a climate as ours, especially with the late maturing and 

 exhausted sorts now in use. Indeed, such stimulation only inter- 

 acts with the other unfavorable conditions, and thus more rapidly 

 and effectually precipitates it into disease. With a better stock 

 of seed cane, a longer season and a more congenial clime, there 

 would be little danger in the most generous application of manures. 

 Such a climate would secure health under almost any circum- 

 stances of impulsive culture. It is plain then, that the safety 

 with which manures are applied to the culture of the cane in 

 tropical regions is but an imperfect guide to us. 



c. Rotation of crops. — Whatever may be the cause, whether 

 the gradual exhausting of appropriate nutriment in the soil, or the 

 deposition of excrementitious poison, few plants bear culture on 

 the same soil through many successive years. Cruciform plants, 

 such as cabbage, radishes and turnips, I have found especially 

 injured by Such consecutive planting. The injury in this case I 

 think, is occasioned by excrementitious poison rather than by 



