158 A.NNUAL REPORT OF NEW- YORK 



as is capable of germination. There are many tropical plants, 

 which are perennial or not, according to the climate where they 

 are cultivated, and which may be propagated with facility by 

 seed, cuttings, tubers, &c. Thus, the Lima bean is a seedling 

 annually here, but is perennial in Liberia. The scarlet running 

 bean is usually cultivated as a seedling, yet, even here, its roots 

 are capable of surviving the winter and growing the second 

 year. Dahlias are raised readily from seed, cuttings, or tubers. 

 Peppers are biennial, and perhaps more at Bogota. Nasturtions 

 are perennial in Peru. So are squashes in the Sandwich Islands. 

 The potato is readily grown from seed to its full size the first 

 year, or it may be readily propagated by cuttings, though usu- 

 ally reproduced by tubers. In the cane-growing States the 

 cane not only does not bear seed, but does not even head or 

 " tassel out," as we say of corn. It is cut for grinding for sugar 

 at that stage of its growth at which Indian cor-a is often cut 

 for summer fodder, when pastures are short, i.e., just before it 

 throws out its top, which is when it is about half grown. Who 

 would call corn ripe at that stage, however vigorously it had 

 grown ? 



According to statements, (see Patent Office report, 1848, p. 

 283,) cane that is six or eight feet high throws out a top or arrow 

 of from five to seven feet more in height. This corresponds 

 very nearly to the habits of Indian corn. At the north the 

 yellow corn, in good soils and seasons, seldom exceeds eight 

 feet in height, and is often below it. Of this the part above 

 the ear is considerably more than half. On the contrary, the 

 southern gourd seed corn I found, in central Ohio, in 1842, 

 standing thirteen feet high, but was told that it attained, in 

 good years, sixteen feet in the same soil. In this case the ear 

 is above the middle of the stalk, thus making the top less than 

 one-half its whole length. 



I am aware that it is asserted that the cane arrows or tops 

 sparingly even in the West Indies. (See Patent Office report, 

 1848, p. 283.) But this may be owing to some want of wise 

 culture, rather than to a natural habit of the plant. Sugar 

 cane, in Liberia, attains a height of fifteen feet, with a diameter 



