THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



289 



pan to ripen towarda the latter part of July. 

 £ach cane sending out a head of seed at the ex- 

 tremity of every leaf branch would yield perhaps 

 a quart, and so heavy as frequently to bend the 

 cane entirely to the ground. Cattle, hogs, birds, 

 squirrels, and every thing which led on it, became 

 seal fat, and reveled until winier in the midst of 

 the wasteful generosity of nature. 



After ripening its seed, the cane withered and 

 died entirely, though it did not lall to any great ex- 

 tent till the following year. It was then thorough- 

 ly matted over the whole surface of the earth, 

 forming a layer of 6 inches or a foot of dry and 

 combustible matter. 



Those who have never witnessed that most 

 sublime spectacle — a field of dead cane on fire — 

 can form no idea of the scenes then frequent 

 among us. A prairie on fire has often been the 

 theme of description. But the terrific magnifi- 

 cence of the conflagration of a cane-brake we 

 think unequalled. The fire may be Icnown at the 

 distance of 6 or 8 miles by a roaring like the com- 

 ing of a hurricane, and a thick column of black 

 smoke which rolls up in the horizon over the spot 

 of the conflagration. Nearer to the scene, and 

 yet not in sight, the incessant reports, caused by 

 the explosion of the heated air in the joints of 

 the cane, brings to the mind nothing more forcibly 

 than the idea of embattled armies engaged by 

 myriads in the work of death — while the giant 

 monarchs of the forest, consumed at their roots 

 by the devouring elements, occasionally tumble 

 •with a crash which jars the hills like the mingling 

 of heavy artillery in the battle. Coming nearer, 

 the scene which meets the eye makes the brain 

 reel. A tumultuous ocean of flame seems rolling 

 over the hills, leaving nothing but smoking ruin 

 behind its thundering march. For a while per- 

 haps the flame moves on evenly and regularly. 

 Presently it is lashed to fury by the breeze and 

 feaps ahead in long tongues of flame with the 

 speed of a courser. Again as it sweeps up the 

 ascent of a hill and gains the top, it will seem to 

 leap away from the earth and try to seize the sky 

 itsell in its embrace. Occasionally as it meets a 

 bunch of cane standing erect, or seizes on the 

 dry bark of some tree it will be seen wreathing it- 

 self in columns forty or fifty feet in height and 

 playing among the topmost limbs of the Ibrest — 

 making altogether, with the deafening noise — the 

 vaulting flame — the dense clouds of black smoke — 

 and the cinders which fall in showers behind it — 

 one of the most sublime exhibitions of the power 

 of the great element, fire, which we ever 

 beheld. 



After such a conflagration has passed over the 

 land, as may be supposed, not a green thing is 

 seen. The ground is left clean and mellow, with 

 a fine dressing of ashes, and nearly every tree 

 completely deadened. Cutting the cane and burn- 

 ing itofl" in this way, is the universal methud of 

 clearing in the cane regions ; and the process 

 leaves the ground in so fine a state that superior 

 crops of corn are sometimes raised with no other 

 labor than to stick holes with a stick where the 

 corn is to be planted— covering with the loot and 

 afterwards knocking down the «Hti/on cane which 

 will spring up from the old roots. 



The manner of the growth of cane from the 

 seed is peculiar. In the fail which followed the 

 general seeding in 1830, the ground became co- 

 VoL. X.-37 



vered with the young plants from the seed which 

 had fallen and been neglected by the hogs. They 

 came up fine and tender, very much resembling 

 nimble-will grass ; and stock grazed it with great 

 eagerness. It continued green through the winter 

 though it did not grow ; and where the land was 

 not burnt off as we have described above, and 

 the stock was not plentiful enough to extirpate it, 

 the cane agam took possession of the soil. The 

 peculiarity of its growth is in this : no stalk 

 grows, no matter how long it may stand, more 

 than it grows the first season it sprouts. It shoots 

 up to its full size in a lew weeks, and there re- 

 mains till it dies. Tlie roots however continue 

 growing from year to year until they reach per- 

 fection, and as all the stalks after the first year 

 shoot from the joints of the roots, so as they ad- 

 vance in growth, they send up every year larger 

 and larger stalks until at last the 7?mi/on cane is 

 seen to sprout up as large as a man's wrist and 

 attain the lull height and perfection of the plant. 

 It is many years — some 8 or 10 — before the roots 

 attain their liill growth and send up the full sized 

 cane. The first year, from the seed, the plant 

 does not grow higher than six inches — there it 

 stands and grows no more. The next year suck- 

 ers spring up from the roots of this first plant 

 about the size of a goose quill and about 18 inches 

 high — there they stand and grow no more. The 

 following year still larger suckers spring up ; and 

 so on until the large mutton cane are sent up — 

 which shoot forth to full size and height in a lew 

 weeks, and these stand until seed time again rolls 

 round, and they bear their fruit and perish. Aspa- 

 ragus is the only other plant with which we are 

 acquainted which has a similar growth. 



VVe have heard a great many pronounce as to 

 the length of the periods at which cane will seed. 

 Some say, it will spring up, attain its growth and 

 seed in 7 years — others that it will only seed every 

 14 years. Our own opinion is that both periods 

 are too short, and that at least 20 years will elapse 

 before the plants from the seed will in their turn 

 produce. The cane from the seed of 1830 has 

 not yet after 12 years attained the full size of its 

 predecessors, in those parts of the country where 

 it has been left unmolested ; and we have never 

 heard our oldest citizens epeak of witnessing but 

 one general seeding — that of 1830. Partial seed- 

 ing however may be seen in nearly every cane 

 break much oftener. A few clumps — sometimes 

 several acres will run to seed, die and fall. These 

 are no doubt bunches which did not seed with the 

 balance and run their course out of the general 

 order. A ftiw dwarf cane too — about the height 

 of a man's waist — may be frequently seen seed- 

 ing in the midst of the larger growth. The ex- 

 emption of most of the bottoms, on this and the 

 other side of the JVJississippi, Irom the general 

 seeding of 1830 may be accounted lor from the 

 lact that overflows kill cane — and that which stood 

 at that time in these bottoms was not probably of 

 the same age as thai on the hills. The overflow 

 of "28 killed large bodies of cane and on lands 

 habitually overflowed cane will not grow. On 

 much of the ground where the cane was kill- 

 ed in '28 it has again sprung up from seed which 

 either had laid dormant in the soil, or had been 

 floated and deposited there by the water from other 

 sections. As late as '35, when we were last to 

 to any extent through the swantps of the JVlis- 



