166 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



cut, they are all, with the exception of the grape, capable of 

 bearing the most intense cold of our winters without injury. 

 "When cut, whether earlier or later, they are either buried out of 

 doors, where they are kept in a frozen state, often almost up to 

 the week in which they are set, or they are stored in damp earth 

 or saw dust in our cellars, where the temperature is steadily but 

 a little elevated above freezing. 



The sugar cane cutting, whether planted in the autumn, 

 or otherwise preserved from frost, for spring planting, can not 

 be kept in the same state of quiescence. It has also the disadvan- 

 tage of having a more vascular structure, and more fermenta- 

 ble juices than the cuttings of hard w^oods. For both these 

 reasons it is liable to injury from the changeful temperature of a 

 southern winter. Any unnatural heat, in the middle of the 

 winter, would predispose it to germinate, as here in the case of 

 potatoes stored a little too warmly. Such predisposition being 

 checked would tend to a state of fermentation and decay in the 

 juices. That danger is actually incurred in this way, is evident, 

 from the fact that the cane frequently rots in the ground in wet 

 winters, and in soils not well drained. (Patent Office report, 

 1848, p. 284.) 



In climes congenial to the culture of sugar cane, the season of 

 winter rest is so short that the cane cuttings being planted in good 

 order, their juices immediately commence those changes needful 

 for the germination of them. Thus the germs of the cuttings are 

 pushed into the atmosphere just as soon as it is warm enough to 

 receive and foster them. In Louisiana there are long weeks of 

 weather so cold and damp as to exercise no favorable influence 

 preparatory to its germination in the spring. In short, the influ- 

 ence of using imperfectly ripe cane for seed, and its exposure to 

 irregular winters, must accumulate from year to year. In the 

 end, these evils must work the same injury, in the culture of 

 cane, that the habitual use, in other places, .of the seeds of imma- 

 ture tomatoes, cucumbers, or melons, would do. Eventual depre- 

 ciation of constitutional vigor must necessarily result to every 

 organized being, wliether animal or vegetable, Irom such frequent 

 and severe trials of health. 



Can it be for a moment doubted that injury has actually thus 

 resulted in the culture of cane 1 Many careless cultivators of 



