STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 163 



fied by facts. Perennial tropical plants, cultivated in an 

 incongenial climate, (one rendered so by shortness of season, 

 and irregularity of impulse,) never gain a substantial adaptation 

 to that climate. See above preliminary consideration 4th. 



c. Tke ivfluence of damp hot weather on the sugar cajie. — From 

 the analogy of Indian corn, and other tropicals, I do not suppose 

 that the sugar cane suffers greatly from this phase of weather, 

 it being truly tropical in its character, and so consistent with 

 the health of tropical plants, unless attended with a suffusion 

 of water about the roots. Indian corn, when once started in 

 the spring, grows with less moisture than any other tropical 

 cultivated at the north. At the same time it bears, withuut 

 marked injury, a large amount of moisture at mid-summer and 

 early autumn, provided the sub-soil be dry and the w^eather warm. 

 It is cold damp weather that injures corn. Such analogically 

 would be the case with sugar cane, and such I infer is the fact. 

 See Transactions of the Patent Office, 1S53, p. 356; article. 

 Climatology. The principal injury to the sugar cane, from warm 

 damp weather, would be in autumn, when it would lead to 

 excessive development, and interfere with those elaborations 

 which bring the juices of the plant into a crystalizable state, 

 that is, ripen it. And such is its injury to corn. 



In both, the ordinary decline of heat, experienced at the com- 

 mencement of autumn, is needful to terminate the expansion of 

 the plant, and dispose it to mature, especially in the case of the 

 cane, which is already too late for the climate. 



d. The influejice of dry hot weather. — This phase of weather not 

 being peculiar to the region of the sugar cane, in the United 

 States of America, should not be dwelt upon em])hatically here, 

 although its effect may be properly noticed. Such weather, by 

 witliholding the amount of moisture needful to distend the j)lant, 

 and aid its elaborations and depositions, while it is highly stimu- 

 lated by heat, will prevent its growth, since the appropriate 

 absorptions from the earth and air are thus impeded. In extreme 

 cases the whole j)lant is dwarfed, and its elaborations are small 

 in quantity ami poor in quality. Such was the result of tlie 

 extreme drouglit in 18j4, in the culture of tomatoes and melons, 

 and probably other tropical plants not particularly noticed. 

 Those tomatoes and melons were scarcely eatable in quality. 



