The sugar cane is an exhausting crop, and it is seldom cultivated by the ryot more frequently than once in three or four years on the same land.  During the intermediate period, such plants are grown as are found to improve the soil, of which, says Dr. Tennant, the Indian farmer is a perfect judge.  They find the leguminous tribe the best for the purpose.  Such long intervals of repose from the cane would not be requisite if a better system of manuring were adopted.

Mr. J. Prinsep has recorded the following analysis of three soils distinguished for producing sugar.  They were all a soft, fine-grained alluvium, without pebbles.  No. 1 was from a village called Mothe, on the Sarjee, about ten miles north of the Ganges, at Buxar, and the others from the south bank of the Ganges, near the same place.  There is a substratum of kunkar throughout the whole of that part of the country, and to some mixture of this earth with the surface soil the fertility of the latter is ascribed:—­

1 2 3
Hygrometric moisture, on drying at 212 deg. 2.5 2.1 3.6
Carbonaceous and vegetable matter, on calcination 1.8 2.1 4.0
Carbonate of lime (No. 3 effervesced) 1.6 0.6 3.9
Alkaline salt, soluble 1.0 1.1 0.3
Silex and alumina 94.1 94.1 88.2
----- ----- -----
100.0 100.0 100.0

The earths unfortunately were not separated.  Mr. Prinsep says the two first were chiefly of sand, and the third somewhat argillaceous.  The former required irrigation, but the other was sufficiently retentive of moisture to render it unnecessary.—­(Journ.  Asiatic Soc., ii. 435.)

Manures.—­The sugar cane being one of the most valued crops of the ryot, he always devotes to it a portion of the fertilising matters he has at command, though in every instance this is too small.

In the Rajahmundry district, previously to planting, the soil is slightly manured, either by having cattle folded upon it, or by a light covering of the rotten straw of the green and black pessalloo, which is here a favourite fertiliser.  In some parts of Mysore the mud from the bottom of tanks is employed, and this practice is more generally adopted in other places.  Thus the fields being divided by deep ditches in Dinajpoor, the mud from which is enriched by the remains of decayed aquatic plants and animals, forms an excellent manure for the sugar cane, and of this the ryots make use, spreading it over the surface before the ploughing is commenced; and when that operation is completed, the soil is further fertilised by a dressing of oil-cake and ashes.

Crushed bones would unquestionably be of the greatest benefit if applied to the sugar cane crop.  Not only would their animal matter serve as food for the plants, but the phosphate of lime of the bones is one of the chief saline constituents of the sugar cane.