CANE SUGAR. 



the plough; such land was ploughed with the turn plough drawn by oxen, 

 and furrows made by the double mould-board plough. Of late years more 

 rational methods have been adopted, and the steam plough is now in use. 



Hawaii. Deep and thorough ploughing and good preparation of the soil 

 is a characteristic of this district. A typical routine is as follows : After the 

 land has carried its last ratoon crop, a plough is run down the middle of the 

 row bursting out and shattering the ratoon rootstocks ; the land is then 

 harrowed, ploughed and, perhaps, cross-ploughed. "Where the contour of the 

 land permits steam ploughs, generally Fowler cable-operated balanced ploughs, 

 as shown in Fig. 31, are used; after ploughing a second harrowing is done, 

 following on which the furrows, and water courses on irrigated plantations, are 

 made with a double mould-board plough. Fertilizer may then be scattered on 

 the bottom of the furrow and mixed with a subsoil tyne cultivator ; usually 

 the application of fertilizer is delayed until after planting. 



Mauritius. For very many years past no new land has been available for 

 cane growing ; an essential feature of the system of cane growing there followed 

 is the well-advised green manuring given the land after the last (generally 

 third) ratoon crop has been taken off. After the land has been for a variable 

 period under the green crop, this is cut down and buried or burnt off ; after 

 lining off the field the holes in which the cane is planted are made with the 

 hoe. The entire preparation of the land is done with very cheap manual labour 

 of East Indian origin. 



Java. The imperative needs of the large native population of Java 

 demand a carefully regulated system of land tenure, and the self-contained 

 plantations found elsewhere are absent from Java. Cane is only planted one 

 year in every three, the land at other times being in the hands of native 

 cultivators ; cane generally follows rice, and a number of small separated areas 

 of rice is united into one cane field, the area of which is from one bouw 

 (1*97 acre) to 100 bouws with an average of from ten to twenty bouws. 



The first operation is to level the small embankments that have been made 

 in the rice fields, and to separate the terraces and fields belonging to different 

 owners ; the rest of the operations are thus described by Prinsen Geerligs 1 : 



"As soon as the rice is reaped, and sometimes during that operation, a deep 

 ditch is dug round the field in order to drain off superfluous water. Owing to the 

 wet rice cultivation the soil has been saturated with water during the last two or 

 three months, all kinds of reduction processes have taken place and oxygen fails 

 entirely. In order then to render the land fit for cultivation the soil must be 

 exposed to the action of sun and wind. To this end the field is divided by trans- 

 verse ditches into plots of one-quarter or one-fifth of an acre, and between these 

 ditches the rows in which the cane is to he planted afterwards are dug. Ordinarily 

 these rows are 30 feet long, 1 foot wide, a little over 1 foot deep, and 4 or 5 feet apart. 

 The excavated soil is heaped up between the rows. In some places where the 

 nature of the soil so allows, the land is ploughed first and afterwards the rows are 

 dug with the native spade. When the field is thus prepared it has the aspect of a 

 large number of trenches which remain exposed to the sun's rays for about six 

 weeks. It is still unknown what chemical action takes place during the drying of 



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