The sugarcane is usually propagated by cuttings. For this purpose the top joints are used. The cuttings are planted in rows 3 or 4 ft. apart, and at intervals of about 2 ft. in the rows. The largest varieties, in rich moist soils, attain a height of 20 ft.; but in dry poor soils, the height is sometimes scarcely more than 6 feet. The plant tillers like wheat, but not to the same degree. The cane-ground is kept clean by hand-hoeing, or by the plow. Hand-hoeing was formerly universal in the West Indies, but the plow is mow very generally used where the nature of the ground permits. The best varieties are ready for cutting in about ten months from the time of planting, but other varieties require a longer period of growth, from 12 to 20 months. When the canes are fully ripe they are cut a little above the ground, and tied in bundles to be conveyed to the mill. Fresh canes called rattoons spring from the root, so that the plantation does not require to be renewed for several years; but the canes of the first crop are the largest, and a. gradual decrease of size takes place. The ordinary practice on sugar estates is to renew a part of the plantation every year.
The name CHINESE SUGAR-CANE is sometimes given to the SHALoo or SUGAR-GRASS. (sorghum saccharatum), already noticed in the article DURRA. A still more important. sugar-yielding grass is the ordinary maize or Indian corn. The sorghum became known_ in America in 1857, and has latterly been extensively cultivated for producing syrup.
It has long been known that sugar could also be obtained from the stalks of maize; but. neither sorghum sugar nor maize sugar could till lately be made so as to compete com mercially with the produce of the sugar-cane. Recently, howbver, an American gen tleman—Mr. Stewart, of Murraysville, in Pennsylvania—has discovered a method of obtaining from both sorghum and maize crystallized sugar equal to the best kinds known. The processes are somewhat simpler than those in use for the sugar cane, and are more economical than those employed in making beet-sugar. The quantity is also abundant. It has been calculated that, on an average, one acre of maize may yield 1800 lbs. of sugar and 44 galls. of molasses; and that the yield of sugar from one acre of maize will give as good a profit as could be got from 30 acres of wheat. (See report of Mr. Drummond, British secretary of legation at Washington in 1878.) Two per cent of the area now given to maize would serve to supply the enormous demand for imported sugar in the United States. It is therefore easy to see how great would be the effect produced in the sugar-trade of the world if the United States were to utilize for their own use, as they may now easily do, their own sugar supplies; still more if they should become a sugar exporting country.
the common name for acetate of lead. See LEAD.