II 
EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 
251 
will continue to pour out several quarts of sap daily for 
weeks together, and where the trees are abundant this forms 
the chief drink and most esteemed luxury of the natives. A 
Dutch chemist, Mr. De Vry, who has studied the subject in 
Java, believes that great advantages would accrue from the 
cultivation of this tree in place of the sugar-cane. According 
to his experiments it would produce an equal quantity of 
sugar of good quality with far less labour and expense, be- 
cause no manure and no cultivation would be required, and 
the land will never be impoverished, as it so rapidly becomes 
by the growth of sugar-cane. The reason of this difference 
is, that the whole produce of a cane -field is taken off the 
ground, the crushed canes being burnt; and the soil thus 
becomes exhausted of the various salts and minerals which 
form part of the woody fibre and foliage. These must be 
restored by the application of manure, and this, together 
with the planting, weeding, and necessary cultivation, is very 
expensive. With the sugar-palm, however, nothing whatever 
is taken away but the juice itself ; the foliage falls on the 
ground and rots, giving back to it what it had taken ; and 
the water and sugar in the juice being almost wholly derived 
from the carbonic acid and aqueous vapour of the atmos- 
phere, there is no impoverishment ; and a plantation of these 
palms may be kept up on the same ground for an indefinite 
period. Another most important consideration is, that these 
trees will grow on poor rocky soil and on the steep slopes of 
ravines and hillsides, where any ordinary cultivation is im- 
possible, and a great extent of fertile land would thus be set 
free for other purposes. Yet further, the labour required for 
such sugar plantations as these would be of a light and inter- 
mittent kind, exactly suited to a semi - civilised people, to 
whom severe and long-continued labour is never congenial. 
This combination of advantages appears to be so great that it 
seems possible that the sugar of the world may in the future 
be produced from what would otherwise be almost waste 
ground ; and it is to be hoped that the experiment will soon 
be tried in some of our tropical colonies, more especially as 
an Indian palm, Phoenix sylvestris, also produces abundance 
of sugar, and might be tried in its native country. 
Other articles of food produced from palms are, cooking- 
