12 THE CHINESE SUGAR-CANE. 



setting. Their cane is grown from cuttings or 

 joints of last year's growth, unlike the West 

 India cane, which lives in the ground year after 

 year, or the Chinese sugar-cane, which produces 

 seed from which it may be grown ; — the cane 

 hitherto cultivated never seeds in this country, 

 and rarely anywhere. It has also deteriorated 

 from being reproduced in this way year after year, 

 from cuttings, so that it takes more acres to yield 

 the same amount of sugar than formerly. Sugar- 

 cane will not flourish on a wet soil. In regard 

 to maple -sugar, it may be said that the supply 

 v/ill probably be limited ; and even allow that it 

 should continue for many years to come as it is, 

 or even increase, how much would it do towards 

 supplying a constantly increasing demand? The 

 same argument will apply, and perhaps with 

 greater force, to the manufacture of beet-sugar, 

 to which considerable attention has been paid in 

 France, tht)ugh but little has been done in our 

 own country. In 1810, when Napoleon the 

 Great did everything in his power to encourage 

 the cultivation of the sugar-beet, for the manu- 

 facture of sugar, there was produced that year 

 2,000,000 pounds, or about one fifty-eighth part 

 as much as France consumed. Subsequent to 

 that, its manufacture increased to an extraordi- 



