STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 155 



needful for the growth of the sugar cane. Silex, being more 

 readily deposited from water than other matters, would be found 

 most abundant nearest the banks of the river. Those planta- 

 tions that are farthest from the river might probably fail soonest 

 from a deficiency of silex in the soil, as some writers have sug- 

 gested. (See Patent Office reports, 1848, p. 286, &c., and 1855, 

 p. 275, &c.) But a more important consideration remains 

 to be stated. Sugar is constituted entirely of inorganic matter, 

 and is represented by carbon and water. Hence, in every well 

 conducted system of cane culture, the return of the refuse mat- 

 ter of the cane to the field will preclude any waste of the most 

 important elements of the soil j I mean those which are mineral. 

 Whatever may be the fact in regard to the exhaustion of the 

 silex of the soils in Louisiana, whether by culture or otherwise, 

 I should not look to that cause primarily for the origin of disease 

 in the cane. A diminished supply of silex, or any other element, 

 organic or inorganic, in a soil where Indian corn is cultivated, 

 results not so much in the diseased as in the dwarfed condition 

 of the crop; and the same is true of other gramineous crops, as 

 the grains and grasses. In the Northern States we find, if I 

 mistake not, that Indian corn and the cereals generally, when 

 raised on soils that have been impoverished by long culture, but 

 that are not otherwise inappropriate, are diminished in quantity 

 rather than in health. Indeed, if sugar cane were liable to 

 disease from this source, we should look to see Indian corn 

 diseased also in the same circumstances, since its demand on the 

 soil for mineral elements is even greater probably than the sugar 

 cane, by all that portion that goes to form the cob and the ker- 

 nel of the corn. The superior ripeness of the corn would also 

 be a reason of its greater exhaustion of the soil, it being well 

 known that the removal of an immature crop from tlie soil results 

 in less exhaustion than a mature one. I would not deny that 

 deficient elements in the soil may sometimes be the occasion of 

 disease in vegetation, yet, for the reasons already stated, and 

 others yet to be mentioned, I think it not the principal cause of 

 disease in the sugar cane. 



b. Soil as mechanically constituted. — We are told, (Transactions 

 of the Patent office, 1848, p. 286, &c.,) that in Louisiana the 



