30 THE CHINESE SUGAR-CANE. 



own experience during the past season with this 

 truly wonderful plant. I received the seed from 

 the Patent Office, through my friend, Hon. 

 Simon Brown, editor of the New England Far- 

 mer, and, believing it to be a humbug, I planted it 

 about the twentieth of May, in hills two feet 

 apart, the rows three and a half, manured in 

 hills as for Indian corn and no more, on a dry, 

 gravelly soil, covering the seed lightly, — for 

 if covered too deep the seed decays. In a few 

 days it made its appearance, resembling corn, or 

 more like broom- com, or barn-grass, and would 

 be mistaken by the ignorant for that grass, and 

 there would be danger of destroying it when 

 hoeing. After it had been up about ten days, I 

 had it hoed, and treated it all through the sum- 

 mer as I treated my corn. When the panicles 

 made their appearance, which they did about the 

 first of September, I cut them off of all that which 

 I intended for sugar or syrup making, while that 

 which w^as intended for seed was left until just 

 before the frosts came, when it was cut up and 

 spread in a dry place. Most of the seed ripened, 

 though it was planted late, and the season was 

 cold and wet, and for weeks in the spring and 

 early summer the plants made little growth. 



