RESEARCHES ON THE SUGAR CANE. 
299 
Neat Farming.— This may be seen in high 
perfection, upon the farm of Mr. Jackson, one 
of Major Holcomb's nearest neighbors. Hedges, 
too, trimmed and kept with such care as he 
learned in his native English home to be neces- 
sary, may be seen upon this farm, and equal to 
any live one that I have ever seen, unless I ex- 
cept the Cherokee-rose hedges of Mississippi. 
The beauty of the general appearance of this 
delightful farming neighborhood is very much 
blurred in consequence of the town of New 
Castle owning considerable tracts of land which 
lie wedged in among those of individuals, and 
which are rented upon short leases, to those 
who can make the most out of them by the 
smallest outlay of improvement. This Ameri- 
can system of renting land only for one or two 
years, at a time, is one that must ever prevent 
tenants from improving, if it does not actually 
ruin the soil. 
As these town lands cannot be sold, an en- 
lightened policy would dictate that they should 
be let upon long leases, with such stipulations 
that they would not only become the most beau- 
tiful, but most productive farms in the state. 
The Prince of Peach Growers, as Major Rey- 
bold has been called, lives in this county. It is 
said that he and his family realised $30,000 in 
one year, from their extensive orchards. Cer- 
tain it is that their industry, enterprise, and im- 
provements have added hundreds of thousands 
of dollars' value to the neighborhood, where 
they have bid the earth bring forth its fruits, 
whereby the tillers thereof have been enabled 
to build themselves luxuriant mansions, and 
partake of such enjoyments of life as those who 
cultivate the soil are justly entitled. 
New-Oxfordshire Sheep. — The most extensive 
and most superior flock of long-wooled sheep, 
perhaps, in this country, is owned by Mr. Clay- 
ton B. Reybold. He has fattened some weth- 
ers to weigh 300 pounds, and has often sheared 
fleeces of 10 or 12 pounds of clean wool, the 
quality of which is not, as is generally supposed, 
coarse and unfit for anything but blankets and 
carpets. There is very little difference between 
Oxford, Lincolnshire, Cotswold, and other names 
of all the long-wooled family. The difference 
is in the breeding and care of flocks. This 
flock is well kept and bred with care and skill. 
Reclaiming Salt Marsh. — The Messrs. Rey- 
bold have made some attempts to reclaim the 
salt marshes along the Delaware, and have met 
with the same difficulty everywhere experienced; 
that is, sinking of the soil after two or three 
years' cultivation, by which it is impossible to 
drain it without mechanical means. As this is 
a perfectly natural effect, the same difficulty 
will occur. It is owing to the decay of the 
mass of fibrous roots that compose the marsh 
soil, and which remain entire and slowly grow- 
ing so long as covered with water, but which 
decay and compact together as soon as the wa- 
ter is withdrawn. Many thousand dollars have 
been spent in draining marshes in the United 
States, which the owners were compelled to 
abandon after getting two or three crops. 
Wherever the value of such lands will warrant 
the use of a steam draining machine, it will be 
worth while to drain them. Until such time, 
they may be used for pasture and coarse hay, 
but still more profitable for the manuring of 
upland with the inexhaustible supply of swamp 
mud which they afford. 
The farm of the Hon. John M. Clayton is also 
in this county, on the railroad from New Castle 
to Frenchtown, and is most delightfully situated 
and neatly cultivated. May he be a happy 
Cincinnatus upon it. Solon Robinson. 
RESEARCHES ON" THE SUGAR CANE. 
The following are the conclusions arrived al 
by Senior Casaseca, of the island of Cuba, in his 
researches on the sugar cane : — 
First, that the white or Otaheitan cane de- 
generates on red and intermediate, (mulalres,) 
soils, especially if they are to a certain extent 
run out. This sugar cane then becomes more 
woody and less sweet ; nothing, then, but crys- 
talline and ribbon canes ought to be set in such 
soils. 
Second, that a serious error has been fallen 
into in all the analyses of the sugar cane made 
up to the present time ; inasmuch as being made 
on variable quantities of cane, without any dis- 
tinction as to the part of the plant analysed, they 
never give the true mean saccharine richness 
of the individual examined, and are thus very 
likely to mislead the planter. 
Third, that to form an exact idea of the chem- 
ical composition of the sugar cane, it must be 
examined throughout its whole length. From 
such an examination it is found, 1. That, in the 
canes from Otaheite, the quantity of water in- 
creases in arithmetical progression from the 
bottom to the top of the plant ; and that, if in 
the other species of sugar cane this is not rigidly 
exact, it is so nearly so as to lead one to infer 
that such a mathematical distribution of the 
water is an organic law in the sugar cane. 2. 
That the quantity of sugar is greater at the bot- 
tom than in any other part of the cane. Also, 
that the quantity diminishes as we approach the 
top of the lower third part of the cane's length ; 
but if we take the mean quantity of the central 
third, and also of the upper third, we find that 
in them the quantities of sugar are nearly equal, 
It follows from this that, from and after the first 
appearance of the central third, the distribution 
of the sugar is nearly uniform. 3. That in the 
lower two thirds of thecane,the mean quantity of 
ligneous matter is pretty nearly the same; the 
same quantity, or very nearly so, being present 
in each of the lower and middle thirds; but in 
the upper third, it diminishes rapidly, as we get 
nearer the top ; and it is for this reason that the 
mean quantitj^ of woody matter in the upper 
third is much less than that of the two lower. 4 
That the quantity of sugar in the middle third 
is pretty nearly the mean quantity in the whole 
cane. 5. That, if it were not for the knots, there 
would be, ia certain cases, a constant propor- 
tion between the sugar and the woody matter 
throughout the whole length of the cane. 6.. 
The knots do not, as asserted by M. Peligot, 
contain the same quantity of water as, the test 
