$4 HARVESTING THE CANE. 
off on a block at the time the canes are received from the 
wagon which conveyed them from the field. Topping cane 
with a corn knife is wearisome work, and when done in the 
field renders necessary the additional labor of gathering up 
the fallen tops, and hauling them in separately. When 
the two upper blades are not removed, they serve as a 
guide to the eye of the workman who arranges the cane in 
bundles upon the block, and the topping is then done with 
the axe with great rapidity and nicety. If this is done in 
fair weather, the seed is then in a condition to be put under 
shelter and dried rapidly, a matter always difficult of ac- 
complishment when the tops have been cut off in the field 
and thrown upon the ground. The latter, on account of 
the scanty and impure juice which they contain are valu- 
able only as fodder. After being topped, Chinese sorghum 
canes will average six to eight feet in length. They are 
then about two feet longer than the stalks of ribbon cane, 
grown in the Southern States, when prepared for the mill. 
On some sugar plantations, not more than three or four 
feet of the stalk of the Southern cane is suitable for being 
crushed.* The sorghum stalks are more slender, but they 
may be grown much more densely on the ground. 
* De Bow’s Resources of the Southern and Western States, p. 269. 
* 
