174 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW- YORK 



superior quality. * * * * The juice of the Bourbon 

 cane is of a paler color, and they are ripe enough to grind in ten 

 months. From their size they resist dry weather much better 

 than any other cane, and are not nearly so subject to suffer from 

 that destructive insect, the borer. With all these seeming advan- 

 tages, it is no wonder if they entirely supersede the use of all 

 other varieties of the sugar cane in Jamaica. They^ however, more 

 speedily exhaust the soil, and it may he questioned, whether in the 

 course of time, they will not themselves dwindle from repeated 

 transplantations in a foreign soil, which all exotics do; and which, 

 indeed, has already been found the case, in a considerable degree, on 

 many plantations. The old cane, it is acknowledged, possessed 

 richer juices than the new, and its tops afforded a much greater 

 quantity of food for cattle, which considerations added to that of 

 their not impoverishing the soil so much as the other, render it 

 very doubtful whether the ultimate benefit will be so great as 

 was anticipated." 



The portions of this extract to which I wish especially to draw 

 attention are those in italics. This work was written more than 

 forty years ago, but already, even then, the Bourbon or Otaheite 

 cane, which the Louisiana writers consider as two different sorts, 

 and which, under the name of Bourbon, is the one there princi- 

 pally cultivated, was beginning to shew signs of failure in the 

 climate of Jamaica. It is not wonderful therefore, that it is now 

 rapidly deteriorating in that of Louisiana. In both localities 

 large size of cane — the result of too impulsive culture — is attained 

 at the expense of deterioration in quality of juice. In many 

 specimens of West India cane seen in the sugar hogsheads of this 

 city, during the past winter, I have noticed that they were all 

 shorter jointed than the reported length of the Louisiana cane, 

 the result obviously of a less impulsive and so more healthful 

 course of culture. 



III. APPENDIX. 



Suggestions on the modes and difficulties of reproduction 



applicable to the renewal of the grape and the sugar cane. 



The Grape. — 1. So frequently do we find the value and availi- 

 bility of many vegetables, and especially fruits, limited by no very 

 distant lines, both of latitude and longitude, that we are constantly 

 to keep in view the necessity of securing the highest adaptation 



