sugar, both by those who have had and those who have not had the advantages of a chemical and a philosophical education-the one groping in the dark, the other with all the advantages of light; yet both have in a great degree been foiled, however much improvement may have resulted. Sufficient attention has scarcely been given to the cultivation of the cane; therefore I shall, in this communication, confine myself to it.

Having for many years gone through with all the various plans of manuring, renewing, trashing, planting and working, canaling and ditching-about the most important of all-I have come to the following conclusions:

Cane is a very exhausting crop, therefore it requires that a very large return should be made of that food used by the cane in its production. To preserve the land in its first state, and to place it in a proper situation to receive this food, canals should be large, ditches frequent and deep. A plantation should always have a deep front ditch, running by the front fence from the upper to the lower line, from three to four feet wide and from three to four feet deep, to prevent the saturation water (which comes by capillary attraction, even when below the level of the land a little) from injuring the land, which, when this is not done, it very often does, and the more so when the land is sandy. If the land is a close-grained clay, then it is dry when the water is much nearer the surface; the prairie-clay lands, when one foot and a half above the water, are as dry as the sandy land at three feet, and can be plowed sooner after a heavy rain. I very often cannot plow my front lands, when five feet higher than the river, after a rain, though I can transfer my plows to my back clay lands, not two feet above the level of the lake, and do good work.

It is very fortunate for us; for were the back lands (which descend as they leave the river, in this region, about six feet for the first twelve arpents), as sandy as the front, at the extremely low level that we work many of them, they would yield nothing-keeping always wet. One mile from the river, I can always plow a day earlier than on the river bank, a difference of full four feet in height. Land, when at all wet, should never be plowed or worked. Of course, deeper the ditches are the more mellow will be both soils. The mixed land is our best.

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From the upper to the lower line, every acre apart, a ditch of four feet wide and from three to four or five feet deep should leave the front ditch, taking the most direct route to the back canal, it running parallel to the river behind your fields, say at twelve, fifteen or twenty acres; taking care that these leading ditches should be laid out by compass at exactly the same degree, so as to be perfectly parallel, and by this means saving short rows, known to every planter as very troublesome and unhandsome. Every half acre apart, from the front fence to the back reservoir canal, should have a ditch parallel to the river one foot deep and one and a half wide, to carry the water from the cane furrows to the leading ditch. When the leading ditches are only one acre apart, the distance from the centre of the cut to each side being only half an acre, of course the water runs rapidly off from the cane rows. When the leading ditches are two acres apart (as

they are upon most plantations), the distance being great, added to the inequalities of the land, the trash frequently stops the water from running off fast, often causing temporary ponds; on that account the cross-ditches have to be renewed with spades almost every year, taking about two or three weeks to dig them. This work prevents frequently the leading ditches from being more than one-fourth of them dug out, as time is not allowed for more, other work pressing. I have always lost a great deal of time on these ditches, which I now avoid by large leading ones at one-half the distance, which allows the cross-ditches to be more shallow, merely requiring them to run the water off the cane rows. I have latterly, in the spring, run a double horse plow up and down them, and in scraping cane cleaned them well out, and find much time saved. As to the large cross-ditches, there should not be one ditch a horse could not step over, from the river to the large back reservoir canal behind your field; that should be twenty feet wide and four and a half feet deep to five, leading (near the lower end of your place if possible) into a large and deep canal, thence to the largest bayou to be found, cutting through any small ones and seeking large ones. The small ones grow up in grass at the very time when most wanted, in September or August, when the rains are heaviest, and are then useless. The canals should be always wide, and when dug out not less than four and a half to five feet deep; for although many prefer the shallow and wide, arguing rightly, that the first two feet take off nearly all the water, yet still the canal does not fill with grass half so quickly as when it is shallow; and also, when the dry spells of weather come, then the canal becomes very low in water, and also the fieldditches, and the ground becomes itself deeper drained; and when the rains do come, which they generally do after a long dry spell of some length, it takes a great deal to saturate the earth, and a good deal to fill up the canals and ditches; which in this way also, as well as carrying off the trash, render material service.

I was induced, when I first established my place, to make several large cross-ditches, by a planter of reputation for making fine crops, because he said the layers of land, or pores, were in layers running from the river, and the cross-ditches as they intersected these layers, being deep, drained better; but this was most certainly a mistake. I have now several ditches to fill up, being just where they should not be. I have given this subject strict attention for six years, and am perfectly convinced of its fallacy. A deep canal, deep reservoir canal behind, parallel to the river, and deep leading ditches one acre apart, four feet wide, with small shallow cross-ditches, one foot trenches (so that a horse can step over easily and not stumble) to carry the water from the cane, and a deep front ditch, are all that is required to drain a place well. When the cross-ditches have to be dug out, from the width of the two acre ditches requiring it, they are followed up quickly by the double horse plows, which usually fill them up, and should a rain occur before you can get your hoes over to clean them out, they become as bad as ever. The others, every time your hoes pass, scrape well out, and they are done with. On the contrary, half-acre leading ditches of two feet and a half are too easily filled up, and are not sufficiently wide to allow of being dug

deep, which is absolutely necessary to a good yield of sugar; also causing an unlimited number of hedges, which is the only draw-back to the acre leading ditches.

But the greatest of all improvements in this way is the draining machine, which I have seen keeping six hundred acres of land in an adjoining plantation, clear of water, the water outside of the floodgates being twenty-four inches higher than upon the inside. The leakage and several heavy rains were evaporated, so that in three weeks the machine worked but once, having first drained the canal and ditches dry, as deep as they went; this also through a low prairie, which was under water nearly all of last year, and is now high above the water in the canal. The best method I think for draining our plantations, is to make the canals that now drain, still drain the lands adjoining the river for eight or ten acres back, which are well above the water-then the machine will not have to drain more than the back lands; for instance, thirty acres front by forty deep, give you in this region about twelve acres deep, high above water, equal to three hundred and sixty acres, and twenty more by the machine, would amount to six hundred more; this then takes a strain of nearly one-half from the engine, rendering the business easier to keep the six hundred clear, and of course with less expense.

This is our plan of an engine to work here, where plantations are cultivated as some are, and this among others, twenty acres in depth, the back lands for four or five acres of the twenty though above water high enough to cultivate, still are not high enough to prevent injury such a year as the last; this, then, had better be put under the influence of the machine. We have yet to see though, if such a season as that of last year can be mastered by this method of draining; I myself believe it can be done perfectly.

The next in importance is the renewal of lands by manure, and as an opinion is gaining ground that the cane trash is sufficient to keep land up alone, I must say that I have not found it so. Though on the old lands the cane trash may be of much use, and upon new, the ashes are more so; yet still this alone will not renew old lands, if placed there forever; and moreover the cane trash ploughed in, as it is by those who have sounded its praises, can be but of little use. Among the first to plough in the cane-trash, was myself many years ago on an adjoining plantation, where I believe it was first generally used; and the owner of which plantation has in part given it up, though more from the difficulty of plowing it in, than anything else, not finding his cane do as well, as where the ground was well plowed, and putting back the plowing so much; the leaf of the cane top catches on the point of the plow and it immediately comes out of the ground although almost rotten; and even in quite wide rows of six and seven, and sometimes eight feet, it is very difficult so to haul it, where the crop is heavy, as to get it out of the plow's way, though eight feet when properly worked does much better, and by this width, double horse plows can always plow, without injuring the cane, managing it better.

For a full and elaborate paper upon Drainage and Draining machines on the best models, with illustrated wood-cuts, see Commercial Review for January, 1847. There is no subject of more importance to planters.-Ed.

The various plantations in this neighborhood cannot in my opinion be benefited one iota by the cane trash. They have not plowed out the middles as usual, on account of the trash impeding their plows, leaving them consequently full of weeds the whole season; and not only that, the cane trash is now, upon the last working, when in a rapid state of decomposition, exposed by being shown upon top, the last working, to the sun, rain and winds, and not having broken up the middles with large plows deeply, when the cane was small, and not injured by three or four horses; they cannot get enough dirt to cover the trash, and there it will remain on top gradually seeking its departure to the same place where fire would have sent it without all this trouble. As to its lightening the soil-and such an idea prevails to some extent, among those who have not long tried it-the lighter particles of straw, chaff, or anything of the like nature, will gradually, by merely the falling of rain and stirring about of the elements, rise to the top and the dirt will go to the bottom, being heavier. At this present moment much of it remains in the middles, not being able to get it plowed in fast, and work going on slower; and I have seen some cane lately that is very nearly destroyed from this delay occasioned in working it, grass having got the ascendency. I have worked, for four or five successive years, cuts along-side of the same kind in cane, one the trash plowed in, the other burnt and plowed immediately—I could see no difference whatever; last year they were the same, both indifferent, as the season was bad, giving very little over a hogshead each. Not so the land out one year in peas; and that out two years in peas, on an adjoining place below me, upon which the trash has been given up, for peas and deep plowing, and on this land the cane was magnificent, and admired by all; at least one hundred and twenty acres in one body, giving over two hogsheads, and this at such a season as last year, on old cocoa ground in cultivation for twenty-five years; it is now, I will venture to affirm, equal to the finest cane in the State, and twelve years ago, this was a bed of cocoa, and yielding scarcely anything. Upon this field there are now one hundred and twenty acres of plants, seventy of second ratoons, and the balance of first ratoons, amounting to about one hundred and eighty acres, that I have no doubt will give over two thousand to twenty-two hundred pounds per acre; this has all been in cultivation twenty-five years; we formerly failed in making this land produce when I lived on that place, by attempting to renew the land by planting corn with the peas; it was of some service but cannot bring up exhausted land. Peas were then tried without the corn for two years, and that was all well turned in, the large sock ox plow of twelve or fourteen inches opened the furrows, the subsoil plow followed, the double horse followed, cleaning up the subsoil's dirt, and the result has been perfectly satisfactory; no cocoa land can stand that, the cane masters it directly. To enable a man to keep his land always in good heart, he should always in a field of six hundred acres have out in peas about two hundred and fifty, that is one hundred and twenty-five in peas alone; turn that in, and put in corn and peas, then in cane for three years, and then out again; by this process, cocoa or any other grass is kept sufficiently under, and the land will have received from the peas the nourishment taken from

it by the cane, which is its chemical food, to be got from nothing else in a like degree. Should there not be sufficient land, as many say, to throw out, how much better is it to take that land, and after a very few years have your place yielding two hogsheads per acre, instead of seven or eight hundred, as is quite common among many that are called old plantations. An old plantation is merely the name for a place that should by the time that it has been established be made a perfect manure bed; I have seen on these places scarcely any yield, and the bagasse which by piling on one side to rot (now thrown in the river), could, when it has rotted, in a very few years itself renew the place by covering the cane with it, as is done now on all the lands around some sugar houses, too near and convenient for hauling to be thrown out; this manure is slightly covered with dirt, and will give a good yield for two years on the oldest lands. Renewed lands will not last as long as new ground cane, and had better, if possible, be kept free from corn, setting aside some new land farthest off for that purpose to be kept so. Stable manure though is better than bagasse, but does not last so long; lime is good upon fat lands, but salt is very deleterious.

In thus far speaking of trash, I only mean to say, that when improperly worked it is worse than useless, and when properly worked, useful only to a degree, but does not do away with the absolute necessity of renewing by peas, and not working too long. The experiment has been tried on an adjacent plantation, and it has certainly deteriorated, and a very few years worked without renewing will run it down. When the former owner and excellent manager of it, my particular friend, regularly put it in peas, it was almost too rich, and his crops were very great. I plow in all my own trash, but never leave it beyond the second plowing, as I am an advocate for plowing all the middles out at the second plowing, covering up the trash at the foot of the cane early in the year; I this year found it assisted much in the latter work of the season. Cane should never, except in perfectly new land, be obstructed in growth by grass, or weeds; and it is impossible, unless you do plow out your middles early, to be without them.

There is much difference on the subject of wide and narrow planting among the planters-almost as much difference as exists among physicians on fever. Cane requires two things always-first for its growth, and then for its ripening-sun, and air. In the narrow rows it cannot have the full benefit of these, and if there is doubt, we had better give it the trial; I am myself more and more an advocate for giving the cane width, both for the former reasons, and to allow the double horse plows to work all the season, after the first breaking up of the larger plows, going deeper, and being also much easier for the horses. I planted, five years ago, eighteen acres of cane, fifteen at five feet, three at nine; I was then incredulous about this distance; the first gave me two good crops, and then the third year was small, almost nothing; I then threw it out, one year in peas, and this year planted it at nine feet, bedding in the peas, as I had done the other. The three acres I bedded, planted three canes side by side, it yielded about twelve hundred pounds the first year, became much thicker the next, with very large cane, yielding fifteen hundred pounds; this is