386 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



which reason the progressive renewal of the plants 

 is adopted. This plan may, however, be continued 

 with very good effect for several years, provided the 

 roots are furnished every year with a liberal supply 

 of manure, that the ground about them is well 

 loosened, and that all weeds are carefully removed. 

 In this way it is said the same roots have been made 

 to send up canes during twenty years. In some few 

 cases, the planters adopt a different course, and 

 never wholly renew any individual field of canes, but 

 content themselves with supplying new cuttings in 

 such particular spots as from time to time appear to 

 be thin. 



The mode of cultivation varies in some particulars 

 in different countries. In India, where the price paid 

 for daily labour is exceedingly small, great pains are 

 taken in preparing the ground for the reception of 

 the plants, which are carefully weeded and watered, 

 and freed from insects, at all periods of their growth, 

 when such operations are called for. Unfortunately 

 for the Indian sugar-cultivator, something more than 

 mere labour is required for the proper manufacture 

 of his produce an acquaintance with chemical 

 science, and the possession of adequate apparatus 

 in both which particulars he is lamentably deficient. 

 The Indian agriculturist would suffer martyrdom 

 rather than be guilty of the crime of innovation ; the 

 discoveries of scientific men are to him as though 

 they never had been made, and in conducting pro- 

 cesses he is contented with apparatus, the total cost 

 of which does not exceed many shillings, where ma- 

 nufacturers of other countries think it necessary to 

 expend many hundred pounds. If their inveterate 

 prejudices could be overcome, and the Indian sugar- 

 planters were furnished with adequate utensils, there 

 is every reason to believe that the markets of Europe 



