72 MEANS OF HASTENING MATURITY. 
ducive to this end, sugar production at the North would 
now be far in advance of its present condition. Not only 
would it be found that much time and labor could have 
been saved, and the crop brought to maturity much earlier 
in districts where the autumnal frosts are not dreaded, but 
the richest and best varieties of cane would now be grown 
in more extreme situations, with as little risk as in climates 
which now seem so congenial to them. 
By pursuing the system of planting and cultivation 
above recommended, and making use of other means spe- 
cially directed to this end, the ripening of the Chinese cane 
may be hastened from thirty to fifty days. This result 
would be more generally appreciated if it were considered 
that it is equal to the difference in the length of the season 
of places widely separated in latitude, or to the advantage, 
in this respect, which the planter in Southern Virginia or 
Kentucky enjoys over the farmer in Western New York or 
Central Illinois. 
This effect is not merely an advancement of the period 
of growth, but partly also a real abbreviation of it, and is 
the result of a combination of favorable influences, among 
the most important of which are a proper selection of the 
seed, early planting (or its imperfect snbstitute—steeping 
and sprouting of the seed), drainage of the soil, the ap- 
plication of lime, or the selection of a limestone soil, and 
an elevated position with an easy slope southward, the rows 
of cane running injthe same direction. 
An important advantage is gained at the outset in rigidly 
observing the rule to plant only the earliest ripened seeds, 
or those found upon the summit or at the center of the 
panicle and grown upon the largest and best of the earliest 
ripened canes. Such seed will produce in turn, not only 
an earlier, but a more healthy and robust, growth of cane 
than those indiscriminately selected. 
