the Sugar-Cane in Spain. 265 
by parallel trenches, about 12 inches asunder, and 8 inches 
deep. The earth turned out is laid on the intervals between 
the trenches. The width of these trenches is different at 
different places. The trenches being finished, the planter 
proceeds to place horizontally in their bottoms the shoots or 
tops of the canes of the former season, which, for this pur- 
pose, have been carefully preserved. These shoots are of such 
lengths as to have four or five buds in each. The pieces I 
saw buried, in renewing the worn-out roots in a plantation at 
Velezmalaga, were about 9 inches in length, and two were 
placed sideways in each furrow. Each pair were placed about 
6 inches from the adjacent pair. A portion of the earth is 
then thrown on the shoots; and as the buds rise above the 
ground, more soil is gradually added from the heaps, until 
about the end of five months, when the whole earth of the 
heaps has been accumulated around the young plants. Dur- 
ing this period of their growth, they are carefully weeded, and 
irrigated, if necessary, as already described. The great enemy 
of the Spanish sugar-planter is an occasional, though slight, 
frost, which is very apt to kill the young canes. I observed 
in many places very high fences of the Spanish reed (4rundo 
Donaz) used as defences against the chilling winds from the 
mountains. 
When the young canes are about 15 inches high, they are 
hoed up to 6 or 7 inches; and hoeing and weeding are conti- 
nued during the growth of the plant. 
The sugar-cane comes to its maturity in two years; so that 
a plantation ought to have one-half of its produce ready for 
cutting annually. 
_ The cutting in Spain begins in November, and is a season 
of hilarity and mirth, like that of the vintage in every part of 
Europe. 
The ripe canes, when cut, are carried to the mill, where 
they are crushed between three cylinders of wood plated with 
iron, turning on vertical axes. The power is applied to the 
middle cylinder, on which is fixed a trundle-wheel or pinion 
applied to spur-wheels on the two other cylinders. In many 
works the apparatus is rude ; and in one small mill I observed 
a horizontal water-wheel. But the whole apparatus at the 
