THE EQUINOCTIAL ZONE. 61 



Sea Islands before the historical era, and 

 Columbus found it wild in many parts of 

 America. The sugar-cane succeeds best with 

 a mean temperature of 75 or 77. but can be 

 cultivated in colder parts, where it amounts to 

 66 or 68. The limit of sugar culture 

 stretches therefore from the equator to some 

 distance beyond the tropics ; it is even found 

 cultivated in Sicily and Spain. On the moun- 

 tains of Mexico and Columbia, it is grown even 

 to the height of 6,000 feet ; and sugar plan- 

 tations were formed by Cortes on the table-land 

 of the town of Mexico, at 6,600 feet above the 

 level of the sea. 



On the Himalayan mountains, also, sugar and 

 cotton are grown on the table-lands at the 

 height of 4,500 feet. Sugar is chiefly culti- 

 vated as an article of commerce in the West 

 Indies, Brazil, and India. The sugar-cane is 

 raised from shoots two or three feet in length, 

 which are prepared from the shaft of the full- 

 grown plant. In fourteen days, the shoots spring 

 from the joints, and in the space of a year 

 the shaft, or main stem, is so far grown that 

 it may be cut down. On land freshly taken in 

 which is well planted, and not exposed to long 

 inundations, the sugar-cane yields from twenty 

 to thirty annual crops, since new shoots spring 

 every year from the perennial root. Humboldfc 

 saw a sugar plantation in Cuba which had 

 been in existence forty-five years. The native 

 bugar-eane of Tahiti has been planted in the 

 West Indies, and is found to be far richer than 

 6 



