164 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



With Indian corn, however, the case was different. Here the 

 ears, though but half their usual size, in cob and kernel, were 

 sound. They matured very early. Analogically, I infer, that dry 

 hot weather would affect sugar cane similarly, that is, reduce the 

 size of the plant and the quantity of sugar, without deteriorating 

 its quality. In the early spring, such weather might prevent the 

 free germination of the cane. Such weather, carried to a mode- 

 rate extent, is useful in bringing the elaborations of most tropicals 

 to a high state of perfection. 



e. The season of the sugar-growing States is too short for its 

 perfoct maturity. 



What the ascertained period of the growth of the sugar cane 

 is, I do not know, or rather I believe it is not fixed, but 

 varies with general temperature, quantity of rain, and sudden 

 transition from summer to autumn. Vegetable growth being in 

 the combined proportion of length of summer and climatic 

 impulse, will obviously be greatest when the season is at once 

 long and hot. Definite periods in the growth of cane, as in that 

 of Indian corn, will depend on the abruptness of the transition 

 from summer to autumn, since without such transition, cane, as 

 well as many other plants, would grow almost indefinitely. 

 Facts prove, however, in our own cane-growing districts, and 

 with the varieties there cultivated, that the season is not long 

 enough to give due development to the plant and at the same 

 time to mature its juices, since autumn frequently finds the whole 

 plant imperfect. The result of such imperfection, in regard to its 

 availability in the production of sugar, will be seen by referring to 

 pp. 



Recollecting now the successive steps of this argument — cool- 

 ness, instability, hot intensity, and shortness of season — it is pain- 

 fully apparent that climate,^ season or weather ^ has much to do with 

 the disease of the sugar cane. 



The Rev. J. B. Pinney, formerly the governor of the colony of 

 Liberia, in Africa, lately told me that in Liberia, the Ratoon cane 

 is cut in high perfection year after year, without the necessity of 

 replanting. He also informed me, on the authority of an intelli- 

 gent merchant of New-York city, that there are plantations in 

 Cuba on which Ratoon cane has been cut profitably for eighteen 

 successive years, without replanting. Need we any stronger evi- 



