luable acquisition to their own lands, where the soil and
climate have mutually since contributed to its present prosperity.

_Soil_.--The soil best suiting the sugar cane is aluminous rather than
the contrary, tenacious without being heavy, readily allowing
excessive moisture to drain away, yet not light. One gentleman, Mr.
Ballard, has endeavoured to make this point clear by describing the
most favorable soils about Gazepore as "_light clays_," called there
_Mootearee_, or _doansa_, according as there is more or less sand in
their composition.--_Trans. Agri-Hort. Soc._ i. 121.

Mr. Peddington seems to think that calcareous matter, and iron in the
state of _peroxide_, are essential to be present in a soil for the
production of the superior sugar cane. There can be no doubt that the
calcareous matter is necessary, but experience is opposed to his
opinion relative to the peroxide.

The soil preferred at Radnagore is there distinguished as the soil of
"two qualities," being a mixture of rich clay and sand, and which Mr.
Touchet believed to be known in England as a light brick mould.

About Rungpore, Dinajpoor, and other places where the ground is low,
they raise the beds where the cane is to be planted four or five feet
above the level of the land adjacent.

The experience of Dr. Roxburgh agrees with the preceding statements.
He says, "The soil that suits the cane best in this climate is, a rich
vegetable earth, which on exposure to the air readily crumbles down
into very fine mould. It is also necessary for it to be of such a
level as allows of its being watered from the river by simply damming
it up (which almost the whole of the land adjoining to this river, the
Godavery, admits of), and yet so high as to be easily drained during
heavy rains. Such a soil, and in such a situation, having been well
meliorated by various crops of leguminous plants, or fallowing, for
two or three years, is slightly manured, or has had for some time
cattle pent upon it. A favourite manure for the cane with the Hindoo
farmer is the rotten straw of green and black pessaloo (_Phaseolus
Mungo max_)."[20] Many accordant opinions might be added to the
preceding, but it seems only necessary to observe further, that "the
sugar cane requires a soil sufficiently elevated to be entirely free
from inundation, but not so high as to be deprived of moisture, or as
to encourage the production of white ants (_termes_)."

The sugar cane is an exhaustin