Cultivation of the Sugar-cane [pp. 229-237]

CULTIVATION OF THE SUGAR-CANE.
serve that appellation, bei(ng annually inundated at high water. There
are, however, on that side of the valley, in Arkansas, some prairies
of more productive soil; such as Mount Prairie, formerly called
Prairie de Han, the name of a hunter who made it the centre of his
hunting excursions about sixty years ago.
In the low lands of that side are found CYPRESS SWAMPS, in the
bottoms of large creeks or bayous, forming ponds or lakes, some of
which are of considerable extent; they are full during the annual
time of high water, and dry, or partly so, when that season is passed.
The overflow on the Ouachita river, spoken of before, is, or rather
was, an immense forest of cypress, that most valuable timber of the
South; they have been unsparingly cut down and rafted down to
NewN Orlehns for a market. Thousands of trees are found there,
which have been cut for years, and left, when the river did not rise
enough to float them out of the overflow; or, because they are of
that kind of cypress which sinks, commonly called black cypress; its
specific gravity being greater than that of water. Their waste is the
more to be regretted, as cypress trees are not spontaneously reproduced in the swamps as other trees are in the forest. It appears that
the cause of this want or failure in the reproduction is the following:
Although many places in those swamps are covered with young
cypresses from the seed, giving to those spots the appearance of fine
green meadows, when tile swamp is dry (in autumn), yet none of
these will live to see another season; they are at the next high water
entirely covered, and perish; few, and very few indeed, which happened to grow on the edge of the swamp, or on higher spots in the
swamp, escaping total immersion, soon attain a height above the
highest water-mark, which insures their existence; for although a
total immersion is fatal to the plant, it is safe when its smallest part
is above that risk. This opinion is founded on several years observation in the cypress swamps of Ouachita.
The climate of the western side, not differing from that of the
whole valley, it will be noticed when treating of that subject in
another number.
Art. VII.-CULTIVATION OF THE SUGAR-CANE.
CANE LANDS-DRAINING DITCHES-DRAINING MACHINES-CANE
TRASH-BAGASSE-MANURING-WIDE AND NARROW PLANTING EFFECTS OF FROST IN DIFFERENT LOCALITIES.
Parish of Plaquemine, La.
To J. D. B. DE Bow, ESQ.,
Dear Sir-As regards the cultivation of cane, and its manufacture, I would not, unless solicited, have offered my opinions, except
to strangers who may request information. To them, when a little
warning may be productive of some good, I think all who have had
experience should endeavor to contribute their share.
I presume there is no crop in the world that more experiments
have been tried upon than in the manufacture of the cane-juice into
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