48 THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
of such soils as are deficient in it. This recommendation 
finds its explanation in the astonishing success of the 
sorgho on the chalky soils of Champagne, where, other- 
wise, they obtained very mediocre results; but, says M. 
Madinier, if calcareous applications seem desirable, it is 
by no means the same of such other saline manures as 
have been found by experience to be unfavorable for the 
sugar cane and the sugar beet. 
Lacoste urges upon his readers to avoid attempting the 
sorgho culture on soils where the soluble, inorganic mat- 
ters are very abundant, because they would thus be ex- 
posed to the undesirable perplexity of producing juice in 
their plants of a saline character, and completely unsuit- 
able to the extraction of sugar. 
Count Beauregard says that the sorgho will flourish 
well on almost all soils, if they be underdrained and irri- 
gated; but his experience shows him what would be sup- 
posed by any sensible man, that the best results are ob- 
tained on soils of the best quality that are best cultivated. 
We may mention in respect to the soils, that one of 
the French writers speaks of having procured fine crops 
of sorgho from a soil on which he thinks he would not 
have have got a fair crop of any other forage plant; 
and the acre of plants which I raised myself last year, 
was on a coarse, gravelly loam, resting on a pure gravelly 
subsoil, so hard that it was a matter of difficulty to plow 
it, and subsoiling was almost impossible. From the ex- 
perience of all the cultivators with whose writings I have 
met, I should advise the choice of land of medium qual- 
ity, and between a black loam and a pure gravel, and of 
a moderate richness. 
