SUGAR-CANE 1 1 7 



tain too much nitrogen, but this very rarely happens. 

 Some potassium must, of course, be present (see page 26) ; 

 but too much potassium or sodium makes a soil bad for 

 sugar. If a soil contains a little too much of these, some 

 can be removed by growing maize on it for a year or two. 

 When sugar is grown for a long time on any plot of 

 ground, it is likely to exhaust the lime. This 

 has happened on some Philippine plantations. 

 Semler, in his book on tropical agriculture, 

 describes a soil from Camarines as the finest 

 possible for sugar. 



CULTURE 



Propagation. Cane is always propagated on 

 plantations in one way, by burying a part of 

 a grown stem in the ground. This piece 

 is usually laid horizontally, in well-broken 

 ground, and buried under less than a deci- 

 meter of soil. 



One method is to use whole stems for "seed," Fu;.8 4 . Apex of 

 and to lay them end to end in the rows; but S/ 'nodes 

 this method wastes a great deal of sugar. The and eyes 

 better way is to use only three nodes from the top of the 

 cane, where the internodes are short and contain very 

 little sugar. These tops are placed about 80 cm apart in 

 the rows, and the rows are i meter to 1 20 cm apart. 

 Small cane may be planted closer than this, and very 

 large cane should be farther apart. The rows are 

 sometimes made farther apart to permit cultivation by 



