SUGAR CANE.
Tallest and most valuable of all grasses is the sugar-cane, which grows to a height of twenty feet, in the most favorable situations, and furnishes one of the most important of human foods. Its name, Saccharum, gives us a root for words that mean sweet; and it is the adjective part of the Latin names of several other plants whose sap yields more or less sugar.
The cane is very much like maize in general appearance, except that the "joints" are shorter and the leaves narrower. When the time of flowering arrives, the stalk is topped by a full, oval plume, like that of pampas grass. The sections of the stem are covered by a tough rind, and filled with soft pith, strung with thread-like fibres, and saturated with the sweet sap. The time when the percentage and the condition of sugar is best is just at the fading of the flowers. After that the plant draws upon the store of rich sap to ma ture the seeds.
The grower is little interested in seed-produc tion. When the stalk is cut, new shoots come up from the roots — the "ratoons," from which the new crop comes — sometimes for a long period of years. Another means of getting new fields planted is setting out cuttings. Any joint is likely to root, if planted, and it may send up a number of canes. The top of the cane is always deficient in sugar, and best for making cuttings. This fortunate combination of facts enables the grower to send the best of his crop to the sugar mill, and keep back the part of the canes that insures the best crop next year in the new field. Two joints to a cutting, and the cuttings set out in a horizon tal position, are the usual methods on the up-to date plantations.
Only in the tropics does the cane flower at all freely. Many of the varieties grown do not flower at all. This condition has arisen from the con tinued propagation of new plants by means of cuttings and ratoons.
A plant that is commercially grown in all tropical and sub-tropical countries of the globe, by peoples ranging from civilization down to savagery, receives varied treatment, before and after completing its period of growth. In
general, then, we can speak of the cultivation and harvest of cane, and the manufacture of sugar.
During the ten months between the planting and harvesting of sugar-cane it is kept free from weeds, and the soil mellow to retain moisture. The fields must be irrigated if good crops are demanded in regions of insufficient rainfall. The lower leaves are often stripped to let in the sun, and make the canes stand up better. When tests indicate that the time for cutting has arrived, the men go into the harvest with machetes, or other stout knives. The stalks are cut near the ground, for otherwise much sugar would be lost. The part of the field earliest to get a start in spring is the one earliest ready for the knife. This is fortu nate, for the canes cut must be crushed in the mill soon afterward, or they will quickly deteriorate.
The growth in the cane brake is tremendously heavy, and for this reason the most enlightened planters take advantage of inventions that carry the canes to the mill. Barges, if water is near, trolleys, lines of railroad with open cars, even flumes, are means of transportation made use of to save expense in time and human muscle.
The improvement of machinery from the puny wooden wheel crushers, driven by mule or buffalo power, that left a large percentage of the sugar in the stalks, to the power mills that get almost all, has done much to create, as well as supply, the increased demand in the world for sugar of the highest quality. In the cane mill and on through the sugar factory we see skilled men controlling the machinery that converts cane sap into sugar. Few processes require human labor, such as is put into the business in countries where more primi tive methods are still in use. The improvements have been made by men who have gone into warm countries from the North, and taken vigorous hold of the business. Teaching the easy-going inhabitants the use of machinery has been a chore.