CULTIVATION OF SUGAR CANE. 11 



The question of the application of these useful implements to the 

 preparation of cane lands, therefore, resolves itself into a question of 

 motive power, and to the judgment of the farmer, who must decide if a 

 possibly smaller acreage placed in a perfected condition does not offer 

 greater inducements than a larger acreage illy prepared and fraught with 

 prospects of crop failure. 



Under the, existing live stock conditions, no other suggestion can be 

 made at this time than that given above of doubling up the available 

 farm animals until the required motive power is secured, and it is recom- 

 mended with the assurance that the farmers gains from a smaller, well- 

 handled acreage will more than compensate for the loss of acreage that 

 this concentration of power implies. 



In preparing valley land for planting, some provision must be made for 

 times of food that does not apply to uplands. After the first heavy plow- 

 ing the land is to be fined down with a good harrowing. If the soil is of 

 free, open texture and handled at the time when still moist but not sticky, 

 the common form of sectional harrow will do good work. If inclined to 

 be cloddy the disc harrow will reduce the soil to the best condition of any 

 tool in common use. The land is then to be laid off in 5-foot beds, the 

 middles between them being opened up with a double-mold-board plow. 

 In valley lands that have been kept in the best condition, it is here that 

 the only occasion should arise for the -use of the subsoil plow for the 

 purpose of deeply opening up these middles, which will serve the double 

 purpose of drainage, and of supplying soil for the elevation of the beds. 

 The depth or shallowness of these furrows will be governed by the suscep- 

 tibility of the land to overflow. 



In many tropical regions, and in most of the Philippines, the cane beds 

 are only made 3% to 4 feet apart, but where the highest skill is exercised, 

 and upon good soils the 5-foot planting should yield a tonnage equally 

 large and at a great saving of expense in both labor and seed cane. 



SELECTION OF SEED CANE. 



The cane used for seed should always be well ripened and selected from 

 such stools or "ratoons" as from mill tests show the most sucrose and the 

 highest purity. Careful selection for a few years, and the reservation of 

 a portion of the plantation for nursery purposes, will enable the planter 

 to maintain his seed cane at a high standard of excellence. The varieties 

 used here seem to be confined to the green and yellow sorts, of probable 

 Javanese origin. These canes, though rich in sucrose, are generally small 

 and insufficient in tonnage yield per acre. Further, and whenever there 

 is a steady decrease in size from lack of proper cultural methods, the 

 deterioration is accompanied with a relatively greater increase of fiber 

 that, in its turn, represents another loss at the mill. The many useful 

 striped, rose and purple canes, that have contributed to bring Hawaii to. 



