Sugar 



87 



of twenty tons per acre of pen manure (corresponding to farmyard manure of this country) 

 is sufficient, and that there is as a rule no remunerative return gained by adding chemical 

 manures in addition. This result is of great economic importance, otherwise large sums of 

 money might be, as in places they are, wasted annually in the mistaken idea that benefit was 

 being done to the crop. The fact is too often overlooked that the ill-directed application of 

 manures may actually do harm and diminish instead of increasing the crop. Very elaborate 

 and valuable experiments have also been conducted by Prof. J. B. Harrison in British 

 Guiana, and it is interesting to note that both workers agree that the richness of the cane 

 is not influenced by manuring. The percentage of sugar in the juice of a cane is a character- 

 istic which does not alter with differing manurial treatment, and that when a larger crop is 

 obtained it is due to the manure having encouraged a heavier growth of cane, and not a crop 

 of the same weight but richer 

 in sugar. - 



Planting. The soil is 

 cleared of weeds, well tilled, 

 and furrows are dug three or 

 four feet apart and about 

 one foot deep. The tops or 

 cuttings are set almost ver- 

 tically in holes made in the 

 furrows, or sometimes, e.g., 

 in Louisiana, and also in 

 Cuba, whole canes are laid 

 down in the furrows. The 

 roots soon develop, and 

 shortly after one culm or 

 stem shoots up, then another, 

 until four or five stems have 

 arisen from the little buds 

 on the original cuttings as 

 shown in the illustration. 

 During the growth the field 

 must be kept clean by 

 weeding and hoeing, until 



after about eight months the canes have reached their full height. Then the lower leaves are 

 partly withered, and in some places the custom is to strip the plant of those dry leaves. 

 This causes the stems to stand up more firmly, and admits sunlight and air. This practice 

 is not essential in all countries, and is not always adopted. 



Sugar-cane being generally grown in the tropics, hand labour is principally employed 

 for various reasons, but in Louisiana, for instance, much of the cultural work is performed 

 by the help of machinery, partly due to the scarcity of cheap labour. Steam-ploughs have 

 been introduced into Trinidad by the Trinidad Estates Company, and are estimated to do the 

 work at slightly less cost than when animal traction is resorted to, and at not much more than 

 one-half the cost of manual labour. 



After about ten months some flowers may appear, but by no means on all plants : some 

 varieties never bear flowers at all, and in the cooler sub-tropical countries a flowering cane is 

 the exception. 



The best moment for the cutting and further treatment of the sugar-cane, that is to say, 

 the moment when the sap is purest and at the same time most plentiful, is when the 

 flowers have faded. Fortunately, the quantity and the quality of the juice remains station- 

 ary for a fairly long time, but as soon as the growth ceases the sap gradually begins to dry 



REAPING SUGAR-CANES IN THE WEST INDIES 



