156 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW- YORK 



sand diminishes in the soil as you recede from the river, the 

 change being gradually made to a clay mixed with vegetable 

 deposit; and that this soil when properly drained, is very rich 

 and well adapted to the growth of cane and most other crops. 

 We may hence infer, tliat almost any interval land, holding a 

 due medium between dry, coarse sand and gravel on the one hand 

 and wet clay on the other will, in an appropriate climate, pro- 

 duce good sugar cane. These limitations are much like those 

 of Indian corn, except that the latter will grow well in the 

 coarsest and dryest land provided it find there the needed mineral 

 elements, it being in this respect, one of the coarsest feeders we 

 cultivate. In this it has much the advantage of the sugar cane, 

 the canes of which when planted in the furrow need fine earth, 

 well elaborated over their whole length, to encourage germina- 

 tion, while a very small portion of fine soil, immediately around 

 the kernel of the Indian corn is sufficient. The great evil I ap- 

 prehend, in the condition of the soil in the culture of cane is 

 dampness; the extreme of moisture, in a cool season, chilling the 

 whole plant, and in a hot one provoking too rapid a growth, 

 and thus making the plant too vascular, and leaving it at the 

 close of the season, immature. The general fact however that, 

 in some seasons the disease of the sugar cane is found on most 

 soils, however <5hemically and mechanically constituted, and 

 that, in other seasons, nearly all soils are exempt, seems to me, 

 to exonerate the soil from at least a leading agency in its pro- 

 duction, and to lead us forward to the investigation of some of 

 the other conditions of vegetable growth in which mainly to 

 find it. 



2. Climate, as affecting the health of the Sugar Cane. — 

 By a recurrence to the general principles, (heretofore stated in 

 specific requirements of plants) the specific climatic require- 

 ments of tropical plants will be seen. The climate of Louisiana, 

 though doubtless exhibiting a degree of heat adequate to the 

 moderate prosperity of the sugar cane, fails in some important 

 qualities,. The sugar cane is a thoroughly tropical plant, produced 

 on islands and maritime coasts, where it finds a climate very dif- 

 ferent from that of Louisiana. 



