CULTIVATION OF THE SUGAR CANE. 



But even should it be found that this does occur, it is 

 easily corrected after taking off the last crop of ratoons, 

 by burning the field trash on the surface, a process which 

 would effectually destroy all insects and their larvae. 



Under the usual system of planting, I have always 

 studiously avoided burning, making it a principal object 

 to accumulate all the vegetable matter possible on the sur- 

 face. But where the plan for returning the megass to the 

 surface of the soil is adopted, the objection to its being 

 occasionally or periodically practised, would no longer 

 exist. 



Another subject which, in an economical point of view, 

 cannot be too strongly advocated, is, that more attention 

 should be paid to ratooning. Good ratoons can only be 

 produced by a deep and early tillage of the land to be 

 planted ; and more land should not be broken up than can 

 be thoroughly tilled at an early period. It is a very 

 common error to grasp at too much, and to do the whole 

 imperfectly. It is much more economical in every way to 

 make a hundred hogsheads of sugar from thirty or forty 

 acres than from sixty or eighty. In fact, the quantity of 

 land planted should not be regulated by the size of the 

 estate, but by the power of stock and implements at com- 

 mand; and the preparation should in all cases be com- 

 pleted at least three months before the time for planting. 

 When this rule is observed, and a thick covering of vege- 

 table matter applied to the surface, good ratoons will be 

 sure to follow, particularly where the rows of canes have 



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