50 THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
afford to'cultivate his crops, the whole ground can be 
effectually stirred up to the very foot of each plant, and 
the double labor of turning at the end of rows crossing 
each other be avoided; the plants being spaced in the 
rows at a suitable distance apart, are not overcrowded as 
they are in hills, and they thus have greater tendency to 
ripen their seed-heads. I should recommend planting at 
three and a half feet apart, the plants in the row thinned 
out to twelve inches apart. 
DEEP CULTURE.—SUBSOIL PLOWING. 
The land should, of course, be well worked and deeply 
stirred, and the use of the subsoil plow has on our 
farm been attended with the happiest results. By its 
disturbing influence upon the subjacent particles of the 
soil, not only are spaces made through which in infinite 
numbers are insinuated the delicate radicles of the grow- 
ing plant, but at the same time sunlight, and the trick- 
ling dew drops, and the gases of the atmosphere, descend 
through the interstices and conspire to assist the develop- 
ments of vegetable life. To a plant which is so tardy in 
acquiring a rapidity in growth as the sorgho, it is espe- 
cially desirable to give assistance in its early stages. 
The swelling of the parent seed, the putting forth of the 
first radicle, and the progressive accretions of matter, 
are all expedited by a sufficient contact with air, heat, 
light, and moisture. When the soil remains quite com- 
pact, by reason of much moisture present, the air, and 
consequently warmth, is to a great extent excluded, and 
the seed lying in the soil is not brought in contact with 
