345 



early shoots are hard and fibrous, and very different from the large 

 succulent shoots which are afterwards produced and which lengthen 

 into the juicy reed whence the crop is made. In ordinary and favor- 

 able years, with light showers during the first six months, the young 

 canes make no marked progress, but the roots are increasing in 

 length and strength, and in the months of July and August the i)lant 

 begins to sucker, as it is called, and to put out the shoots which form 

 ihe canes, but these make no great progress in length before the end 

 of August and in September and October, when the rains usually 

 come to their aid at the critical time. They then grow with extreme 

 rapidity, are extremely tender and succulent, and a short spell of dry 

 weather at that time usually does serious mischief. If, however, 

 the first six months of the year are wet, and the young canes are 

 excited to an abnormal rapidity of growth, they are liable to be seri- 

 ously aifected by any interval of dry weather in the middle of the 

 year. Moreover, rainy weather in the reaping season retards the 

 nuinufacture, and, especially in the black soils which contain an 

 excess of iron variously combined, causes a great loss from the 

 rotting of the canes at the roots. 



An illustration of this is afforded by the rainfall and crops of 

 18G0 and the two following years. 1860 was a model year; the rain 

 fell at the right time, and in exactly the average quantity, 57.01 

 inches, of which 12.46 fell during the first six months. The crop of 

 1861 would undoubtedly have reached 55,000 hogsheads but for the 

 w^et reaping season of that year, in which the rainfall of the first 

 six months was 31.93 inches — 6,35 in April, 8.01 in May, and 8.01 

 in June. The consequence was that the crop only reached 49,745 

 hogsheads, and although so much rain fell throughout the year 

 (73.82 inches), the following crop of 1862 was only 46,120 hogsheads. 



In the same manner the heavy rainfall of 1855 (77.31 inches, of 

 which 30.68 fell in the first six months) Avas followed in 1856 by 

 only a moderate crop (43,077 hogsheads), although the reaping 

 season of that year was most favorable. The result, however, is by 

 no means constant. 



The sugar-crop records go back to the year 1806, but the returns 

 are only interesting since 1847, which was "the first in which the crop 

 recovered from the effects of emancipaticm in 1839. Since 1847 

 there has been a steady increase until the crop has attained nearly 

 twice what it was before emancipation. There has also been a slow 

 increase in acreage of canebrake; the size of the hogsheads has been 

 gradually increasing since 1806; there has been a decided increase 

 in the usage of guanos and other foreign manures; there has also 

 been a very decided improvement in the machinery and processes 

 for crushing the cane and manufacturing the sugar."' 



« Although Governor Rawsoii was evidently consc-ious of these progressive 

 c-hanges, and in fact, niejitions most of tlieni, yet he docs not aijproxiniat 'v 

 eliminate their effects by taking the difference JK'tweon the individual cr< 

 and a progressively increasing ideal normal, but takes the difference between 

 the simple average and the individual years; his results, therefore, need to 

 be computed and all the data for this puriwse are given In the tables here- 

 with.— C, A. 



