102 HISTORY OF THE [book y . 
the plants apear above ground by the first day of 
March, they will be fit for cutting about the twen¬ 
tieth of August; and are sometimes equal to the 
best in the West Indies. 
There is this difference, however, between the 
two countries; that in the West Indies, in season¬ 
able situations, they have sometimes four cuttings 
in the year from the same roots, whereas in North 
America they have never more than two, and not 
often more than one. The plant is a child of the 
sun, and can be cultivated, I doubt, with great 
advantage, no where but within the tropics.* 
But that sun which thus improves and invigorates 
the plant, propagates at the same time an insect 
destructive to it. This is a species of grub or 
worm, which becomes a fly, and preys on the 
leaves, and’ never fails, in the West Indies, to dis¬ 
appoint the planter’s expectations the second year 
upon the same land: the only remedy is to change 
the soil every year. The want of due attention to 
this important circumstance, has probably been one 
of the causes that so many persons have failed of 
late years in their attempts to revive the culture of 
this valuable commodity. 
* The ratoons, or subsequent growths from the same plants, riper, 
in six or eight weeks ; hut the produce diminishes fast after the second 
cutting, so that it is absolutely necessary to sow the seeds anew every 
year. 
