"Some Enemies of our Cane-fields." hi 



cut, should, except for an occasional hog plum, Spondias 

 lutea, sown by some coolie carrying the fruit into the 

 fields, or a Trumpet tree {Cecropia) missed in trashing, 

 be perfectly clean. The late seasons have however pre- 

 sented a more marked difference. Formerly, canes 

 covered the ground as the soil became changed in its 

 chara6ler from incessant wet, and an entirely different 

 class of orasses sprung up, properly sedges, of a 

 more or less aquatic nature. These made the work of 

 weeding much harder and more expensive, some of them 

 growing so close, as to make a perfe6l sward over the 

 ground. These the labourers called hair grass, Scirpus 

 capillaris ; like the other species most of which we com- 

 monly term busy-busy not grasses, but really Cyperaceae 

 or sedges. Dry weather and tillage causes an entiie 

 change in this vegetation and the last few months has 

 been sufficient to relegate most of them to their former 

 positions, the bottoms of the small drains. Sour grass, 

 formerly almost unknown in the cane piece, has been 

 largely found there of late, and fields abandoned in late 

 months present the appearance of a ring of sour grass 

 round the dam-beds, lighter grasses on the tops of the 

 beds, and Cyperacex along the drills and drains. From 

 figures before me of the 22 years' rainfall of a Berbice 

 estate up to the year 1887, I find the average rainfall for 

 the year was 75*65 inches or about one-half the 

 rainfall of late years. About 75 inches of rain di- 

 vided into two wet and two dry seasons would appear 

 to give the best results, though doubtless some estates 

 could take more with advantage. Good drainage, im- 

 perative always, is a necessity in heavy seasons, though 

 even with good drains, trenches, and outlets, heavy clay 



