204 
CULTURE OF THE SUGAR-CANE.—NO. II. 
of one true theory. Both these eminent men have 
erred in seizing- upon one fact as the basis of 
a doctrine. There can be no question that the 
Flanders husbandry is right, so far as common 
farming goes, because it is successful—nay, there 
is no doubt that if those people were to bum the 
excrementitious matters they use, they would 
destroy their prospects. That is to say, if they 
adopted the one principle of Liebig they would 
ruin their fortunes. On the other hand, if the 
man of Egypt should pay for the nitrogen of fresh 
camel’s dung, he would be making a bad invest¬ 
ment. These men till different soils: that of 
Flanders is sandy, loose, but not naturally friable; 
it filters off water, but does not absorb and retain 
atmospheric gases. In Egypt, the soil is made 
from the annual sediment of the Nile ; nothing 
can be finer, more friable, more porous. 
Both Liebig and Eoussingault have erred in lay¬ 
ing too much stress upon one condition of fertility; 
you may read their works without supposing there 
is any other than that laid down by either. But 
there are two essentially distinct and essentially 
important principles in the cultivation of such 
plants as tobacco and wheat. 
1st. The presence of saline matters. 
2d. The presence of ammonia, &c., in the soil, 
either in virrue of an abundance of decaying vege¬ 
table matter, or by reason of the porosity of the 
soil. 
This long digression will now appear not unne¬ 
cessary. As a writer in a journal which passes 
into the hands of planters cultivating very dissimi¬ 
lar lands, I could not recommend a proceeding 
only suitable to a limestone soil; and as a scien¬ 
tific man, I would not allow myself to fall into the 
vulgar error of laying down one plan of improve¬ 
ment as suited to all which was in truth proper 
only to a specific tract. Let me be well under¬ 
stood : the two principles laid down, if correctly 
apprehended, point out the method of treatment 
to be pursued in every case, but I leave the ques¬ 
tion of expediency and profit to the farmer; he 
must decide whether, to attain the second deside¬ 
ratum, he will burn a stiff clay, or fallow, with 
clover ; both will answer the end, but the former 
is more durable, for a good burning will show its 
effects for seven or more years. In sandy tracts 
we may improve by fallows, charcoal, &c., but 
can not by burning, which increases the looseness 
of the soil. Limestone lands must not be burnt, 
for obvious reasons. D. P. Gardner, M. D., 
Lecturer on Agricultural Chemistry. 
New York, June, 1844. 
CULTURE OF THE SUGAR-CANE.—NO. II. 
Manner of Cultivation .—In Georgia the cane 
was cultivated differently from what it was else¬ 
where. It naturally took the course of our cotton 
culture of the seacoast; to wit, ridges at five feet 
apart; a trench was opened on the top of the 
ridge, three inches deep, in which a double row 
of cane-plants were placed, cut about two feet 
long, and placed so as the eyes which are alternate, 
should be on the sides, and then covered with two 
inches of earth. This you may suppose in a good 
season gives a continued line of stalks, not more 
than three inches apart, and throwing up cane five 
or six feet fit for the mill. I have often supposed 
that there was growing of vegetable matter to the 
acre, from 30 to 40 tons, certainly containing more 
nutritious matter for stock, than any other plant 
would give upon the same surface. 
In Louisiana they planted altogether with the 
plow, and had their trenches not more than 2-| feet 
apart; they have since gradually widened their 
distance. When I was there, they used generally 
the old French plow, with a wheel at the end of 
the beam. With strong teams, they plowed deep 
and better than anywhere I had seen in the south¬ 
ern states. It was by means of the plow, that 
they planted so many acres to the laborer; and 
again, because they had little grass upon their 
river-lands except the nut-grass. This absence of 
grass-seed I have often wondered at; and at last, 
could only attribute it to the great distance at which 
the cultivated highlands were situated; so that 
the seeds that the winds or the birds might waft 
to the river, were swelled and burst, and lost their 
vegetative power before they reached the lower 
Mississippi, or sugar country. 
The cane in Jamaica, (as we see in Bryan Ed¬ 
wards, and as I knew from two clever and educa¬ 
ted men, who became my neighbors in 1800, and 
who had been many years agents and managers of 
estates in Jamaica,) was planted with the hoe; 
holes in lines two feet one way, and four the 
other, were dug two feet long, a foot wide, and a 
foot deep. Into this deep hole, six or seven short 
cuts of cane were placed, as much manure as their 
numerous mules and oxen, fed on the cane-tops 
and Guinea-grass could produce, was thrown in, 
and then two inches of earth dressed down. At 
every weeding, additional earth was drawn in, 
until, at the close of their cane-working, the land 
was again levelled, without the intermediate spa¬ 
ces being broken up. It took sixty hands to hole 
an acre, and at few plantations was there half an 
acre to the laborer of plant-cane; the rest of the 
crop was first year’s ratoons, and sometimes two- 
year ratoons. In St. Domingo, the fields that were 
watered from the mountain streams, were some¬ 
times ratooned for many years, giving for the prod¬ 
uct of these irrigated lands, one third more sugar 
than the lands of Jamaica, where there were few 
or no watered lands. 
In India, in the interior country, lying between 
the Jumna and the Ganges, which is the sugar 
country of Hindoostan, they have a still more dil¬ 
atory and extraordinary process; they plant in 
holes, but not so deep as in Jamaica, carefully ma¬ 
nure and water sometimes by a well, drawing wa¬ 
ter by a bucket, either by a buffalo or with men; 
and lastly, when the soil is level, and the cane 
run up to near their height, they draw them to¬ 
gether, wrapping their leaves around their collect¬ 
ed stalks, to preserve them from blowing down by 
the winds that precede and follow the change of 
the monsoon. This cane is manufactured in the 
field where it grows, with no shelter for men or 
boilers, or the stone rollers with which they ex¬ 
press the juice, but a tree. Yet they tell us, in 
the Asaiatic Register, published in Calcutta, in 
