218 THE AFRICAN SUGAR CANE. 
season have clearly demonstrated to be quite sufficient. 
If it be objected that this plan entails more than ordinary 
trouble, I answer it also insures the safety of a valuable 
crop, a consideration of no small importance. 
It must be remembered that every seed will, under 
favorable circumstances, “tiller” out so largely as to 
have from ten to twenty stalks or canes (as I shall hence- 
forth call them) forming a large stool, and occupying 
a considerable space. 
I have found that rows three feet apart, with plants 
twelve inches from each other along the rows (being 
about 14,000 per acre), in most cases, was a very suitable 
distance to plant them; but the ever-varying circum- 
stances of soil, climate, and seasons, added to the differ- 
ences between the larger and the smaller varieties of the 
imphee, must naturally suggest corresponding differences 
in the planting distances. 
I have had the Nee-a-za-na in rows only two feet, and 
again in rows two and a half feet apart; but I will not 
venture to say that im all cases such close planting is 
proper. 
In planting along the rows, wherever the plants are 
too thick, they can always be thinned out during their 
early growth. 
The great objection to the adoption of close rows is the 
very serious one arising from the difficulty of cleaning 
and digging between them, which is so desirable and so 
very conducive to their vigorous growth and perfect 
development; for, in common with almost all other 
plants, the imphee likes to have the soil loosened and 
moved about around its roots. 
