66 THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
of appearance and height. When the great profits of 
sowing a piece of corn for fodder, to be cut up and fed to 
the stock in their stalls, shall have become generally 
appreciated, we may confidently look for the universal 
practice of replacing it in great part by the sorgho, both 
because of its multiplied cuttings, its nutritive properties, 
and its superior ability to withstand the as, suns 
of midsummer. 
ITS NUTRITIVE QUALITIES, 
It may perhaps be well in this connection to refer 
to the fact that in Cuba the negroes, and the animals 
employed on the sugar plantations, are at no time of 
the year compelled to undergo more unremitting toil 
than during the boiling season; they are compelled to 
keep mills and boilers at work night and day, for the 
season allowed them to work up the crop of canes is 
brief, and they must employ their time to the best ad- 
vantage. It is customary to work the hands in “ gangs,” 
who relieve each other alternately, one gang being at 
work while the other rests. Yet with all this it is a fact 
evident to every one who has visited an “ Ingenio,” or 
sugar plantation, that both negroes and animals, by 
reason of drinking the juice, and eating the stalks of 
the cane, are more sleek and healthy than at any other 
season of the year. Now this increase in fat is chemically 
explained by the presence of large quantities of carbon 
in the form of sugar, and as every one knows, sugar 
and fat are made of ingredients entirely the same, viz., 
carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. If this be borne in 
mind, then it will be no more than fair to anticipate 
