STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 157 



a. The climate of Louisiana, and the adjoining sugar growing 

 States, is too cool for the highest perfection of its culture. 

 Hence, 



(1.) The cane, at least those varieties now cultivated does not 

 fully develop itself; and as a consequence its elaboration of 

 saccharine matter is not perfect, the sugar often crystalizing 

 with difficulty. The cane now cultivated in Louisiana was 

 imported, (see Transactions of the Patent Office, 1848, p. 281, 

 and 1855, p. 273, &c.,) from the island of Java, Bourbon, 

 Mauritius and Tahiti, and the districts of Malabar and Bengal 

 in India. It is obvious how different are all these climates from 

 that of Louisiana. Java lies between 6^ and 9^ south lat.; 

 Bourbon and Mauritius between 20^ and 21° south lat., and 

 Tahiti 18° south lat. The coast of Malabar and Bengal, in 

 India, lies between 10° and 27° north lat., but from Avhat points 

 within these limits the sugar cane was brought does not appear. 

 The fixed character of plants (p.l8,planls not susceptible of accli- 

 mation) forbids the idea that one cultivated as a perennial, as 

 is the cane, and brought from climates such as are presented by 

 these islands and maritime coasts, should ever conform itself to 

 such a climate as that of Louisiana, situated for the most part 

 between 29° and 33° north lat. Cane, in its native region, is 

 said to be filled with crystalizable matter to the very extremity 

 of the plant. That of Louisiana is confessedly much less rich, 

 the upper part of the plant being unfit to grind for sugar. 



(2.) The sugar cane, in its native region, bears seed. I am 

 aware that this point is practically disputed. (See Patent Office 

 Ke}Jort of 1848, p. 284.) What may be the effect of culture 

 on the seed-producing powers of the cane, I will not now stop 

 to ask, further tluin to hint that, as in the case of the Peony, 

 pink, some varieties ot the balsamine, snow-ball, flowering 

 almond, &c., where the power of culture so distorts the flower, 

 and the habits of the plant, that it never or rarely produces 

 seed, so it may be with the sugar cane in its circumstances of 

 culture. It were an anomaly, however, in the constitution of 

 material things, to assert that the sugar cane, at least in its 

 truly native condition of growth, does not bear seed— such seed 



