n EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 251 



will continue to pour out several quarts of sap daily for 

 weeks together, and where the trees are abundant this forms 

 the chief drink and most esteemed luxury of the natives. A 

 Dutch chemist, Mr. De Vry, who has studied the subject in 

 Java, believes that great advantages would accrue from the 

 cultivation of this tree in place of the sugar-cane. According 

 to his experiments it would produce an equal quantity of 

 sugar of good quality with far less .labour and expense, be- 

 cause no manure and no cultivation would be required, and 

 the land will never be impoverished, as it so rapidly becomes 

 by the growth of sugar-cane. The reason of this difference 

 is, that the whole produce of a cane-field is taken off the 

 ground, the crushed canes being burnt; and the soil thus 

 becomes exhausted of the various salts and minerals which 

 form part of the woody fibre and foliage. These must be 

 restored by the application of manure, and this, together 

 with the planting, weeding, and necessary cultivation, is very 

 expensive. With the sugar-palm, however, nothing whatever 

 is taken away but the juice itself ; the foliage falls on the 

 ground and rots, giving back to it what it had taken ; and 

 the water and sugar in the juice being almost wholly derived 

 from the carbonic acid and aqueous vapour of the atmos- 

 phere, there is no impoverishment ; and a plantation of these 

 palms may be kept up on the same ground for an indefinite 

 period. Another most important consideration is, that these 

 trees will grow on poor rocky soil and on the steep slopes of 

 ravines and hillsides, where any ordinary cultivation is im- 

 possible, and a great extent of fertile land would thus be set 

 free for other purposes. Yet further, the labour required for 

 such sugar plantations as these would be of a light and inter- 

 mittent kind, exactly suited to a semi - civilised people, to 

 whom severe and long-continued labour is never congenial. 

 This combination of advantages appears to be so great that it 

 seems possible that the sugar of the world may in the future 

 be produced from what would otherwise be almost waste 

 ground ; and it is to be hoped that the experiment will soon 

 be tried in some of our tropical colonies, more especially as 

 an Indian palm, Phoenix sylvestris, also produces abundance 

 of sugar, and might be tried in its native country. 



Other articles of food produced from palms are, cooking- 



