JAMAICA. 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



BOTANICAL DEPARTMENT. 



New Series.] MARCH 1896. ^"3' 



OBSERVATIONS OF THE AGRICULTURAL 

 CHEMISTRY OF THE SUGAR-CANE. 



By T. L. Phipsox, Ph. D., F. C. S. * 

 I. 



About the year I a remarkable man, named Columella, left his 

 native town of Grades, now called Cadiz, and travelled through Spain, 

 Gaul, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, in order to collect facts for a 

 great treatise on Agriculture. He even extended his journeys to the 

 coast of Africa, and finally settled at Rome, where he produced his 

 work, " De re rustica," in twelve books and a preface. The latteE, I 

 must confess, is that portion of the work which has interested me more 

 than the rest ; for after an interval of nearly 2,000 years, I find his 

 words as full of truth and wisdom as they were at that distant period 

 above-m entione d. 



Whilst deploring the degraded state of Agriculture in his time, he 

 exclaims : " I see around me schools for preachers, dancers, musicians, 

 and tumblers ; cooks and barbers are also in vogue ; houses of ill-fame 

 and gambling establishments everywhere attract the imprudent youth ; 

 but, as to the Art which teaches how to fertilise the earth, it has neither 

 professors, pupils, justice, nor protection. * * * And if I complain 

 of this neglect I am told that the soil has become barren * * * ! ' 



It is hard to think that little progress has been made in Agriculture 

 since the year I ; but we must concede that whatever has been done 

 since that remote epoch has been achieved almost entirely within the 

 last fifty years. We have now several schools of Agriculture properly 

 so-called, but we find the professors devoting much of their time to 

 commercial analyses, instead of employing their precious moments to 

 unveil the hidden secrets of the earth. It seems to be of greater im- 

 portance to them to determine whether a sample of artificial manure is 

 adulterated or not by the maker, than to discover why a field of canes 

 is productive in one case and unproductive in another. 



* This article appeared first as a pamphlet in 1873. As it is a valuable essay 

 from which much can be learnt, even by those who cultivate other products be- 

 sides sugar, and as it cannot now be obtained, it has been thought wall to reprint 

 it here. 



