CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 223 



the credulous ; others, more sauguhie spirits, on a mere desire 

 of what it should be, without waiting for the slow development 

 of facts, proclaimed it at once as the panacea for southern short 

 crops, or Cuban monopolies. 



The results of the numerous experiments of the past season, 

 are before the community. On these many have based their 

 conclusions of tlie place it is to occupy in our agriculture. For 

 ourselves we consider the question one of such magnitude, that, 

 while appreciating with enthusiasm the great boon that the 

 Chinese sugar cane or a kindred species may be to the North, 

 from the facts developed this year, we have not been enaljled to 

 form any positive opinion on its comparative merits. How the 

 facts before the public run one another down ! One writer from 

 twenty parts of sap, obtained but one of sirup, while his neigh- 

 bor obtains the same qiiantity from seven parts ; the sirup of 

 one is hard medicine to take, that of the other is ranked with 

 the best imported sirup ; one finds it unpalatable to every ani- 

 mal on his farm, while witli another it proves rich food to his 

 neat cattle, his horse and his swine ; with one it is far superior 

 to corn stalks for sirup, with another corn stalks yield more sirup, 

 and of a better flavor ; the experiments of one satisfy him that 

 corn stalks are preferable for fodder, while another has demon- 

 strated to his satisfaction, the superiority of the sugar cane ; and 

 thus opposite results tread on one another's heels. We doubt 

 not that in this series of contradictions, each experimenter 

 states honestly his own findings. Now is it not evident that the 

 leaven of this difference in results, is in the ignorance and 

 clumsy experimenting of parties ? All that can be fairly charged 

 to this sugar cane, are those differences which arise from varia- 

 tions in soil and climate ; but as these contradictory statements 

 have been collected from a limited district, the minimum yields 

 cannot be chargeable in any degree to the cane, but to those 

 who experimented with it. When a new product is introduced, 

 whose culture and management is but indifferently understood, 

 is it not reasonable to assume at the outset, that what pure 

 experiment will at the first detect of its resources will fall short 

 of what those resources really are ? Take for examj)le the intro- 

 duction of corn meal into Ireland, during the year of famine ; 

 we all remember how ridiculous from the stand point of our 

 experience appeared the results arrived at, by our Irish breth- 



