cultivating Sugar Canes. 245 
and ready to fall off: the remaining joints, furrounded 
with green leaves, form the head, which one takes care 
to cut off after the laft leaf has withered. The bare re- 
cital of fails feems fully to prove that the withering and 
fall of a leaf is the only criterion (and a fufficient one it is) 
of the maturity of the joint to which it adhered ; and that 
the eight laft joints of two canes, which are cut the fame 
day, have exactly the fame age and the fame degree of 
ripenefs, notwithftanding one of the canes themfelves 
may. be fifteen, and the other only ten months old. My 
reafoning is further confirmed by the experiment re- 
peatedly made on two equal quantities of canes, cut 
the fame day in pieces of a different age ; it was evi- 
dent, that each joint of the cane, of a fuppofed growth 
of ten months, contained the fame quantity of fugar 
as that of a cane of the fuppofed growth of fifteen. 
The 
leurs feuilles deffechees pretes a tomber; les noeuds fuivant, garnisde feuilles 
vertes, forment la tete qu’on a foin de couper apres laderniere feuille deffechee 
la feule expofition des faits me. femble demontrer que le defTechement etla chute 
d’une feuille, eft Punique preuve (et preuve fuffifante) de la raaturitedu nceud aa 
quel elle etoit attachee: et que les- huits derniers noeuds de deux* Cannes coupees le 
memejourfont exa&ement du raeme ageet de la meme maturite,quand bien memo 
Pune deces Cannes auroit quinze mois et que Pautre n’en auroit que dix; preuve. 
de railonnement confirmee par des. experiences reiterees de deux quantites egales. 
de Cannes,, prifes dans des pieces d’un age different, et coupees. le meme jour, par 
lefquelles il confle que chaque noeud de Cannes pretendiies de dix mois conticnt 
autant de fucre que chaque noeud de Cannes pretendiies de quinze. 
La, 
