100 THE CHINESE SUGAR-CANE. 



Soston, ISth Dec, 1856. 

 James F. C. Hyde, Esq. 



My Dear Sir : I hasten to reply to your note of the 16th, 

 relative to my experience and impressions regarding the sus- 

 ceptibility of the cultivation of the Chinese Sugar-cane in our 

 climate. 



In the autumn of 1855, I learned that an esteemed friend, 

 and a neighbor in the summer season, Benjamin Hemmenway, 

 Esq., of Dorchester, had grown some sugar-cane upon his 

 lands, and that it had matured and given evidence of being 

 well stocked with saccharine matter. Feeling an interest in 

 the subject, I applied for some seeds of his own growth, which 

 he kindly gave me. 



I planted them in hills, quite late in June, 1856. I con- 

 fess they were put into the ground so late in the season I did 

 not expect them to reach maturity, and my chief object was 

 to know if seeds grown in our latitude would ripen suffi- 

 ciently to germinate and produce full-sized cane. There was 

 no doubt that exotic seeds, brought from warmer climates, 

 would grow more or less perfectly the first year ; but it is a 

 totally different question whether the seeds of such plants will 

 again sprout and grow to perfection. 



Not anticipating my cane would ripen, I took but little 

 trouble in planting the seed ; and it is worthy of note, that it 

 was planted in a tolerably rich loam, but without any manure. 

 In a short time the plants appeared, looking like hills of corn, 

 and nothing was done for it excepting keeping down the weeds, 

 saving that it was moistened three or four times with a weak 

 solution of guano and water. I planted thirty hills in two 

 rows, five seeds in a hill, and about the same space between 

 the hills that is adopted in planting corn, one end of the rows 

 running under a very large elm-tree. The cane grew with 

 great rapidity, but tliere was soon a very obvious difference 



