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n EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 251will continue to pour out several quarts of sap daily forweeks together, and where the trees are abundant this formsthe chief drink and most esteemed luxury of the natives. ADutch chemist, Mr. De Vry, who has studied the subject inJava, believes that great advantages would accrue from thecultivation of this tree in place of the sugar-cane. Accordingto his experiments it would produce an equal quantity ofsugar of good quality with far less .labour and expense, becauseno manure and no cultivation would be required, andthe land will never be impoverished, as it so rapidly becomesby the growth of sugar-cane. The reason of this differenceis, that the whole produce of a cane-field is taken off theground, the crushed canes being burnt; and the soil thusbecomes exhausted of the various salts and minerals whichform part of the woody fibre and foliage. These must berestored by the application of manure, and this, togetherwith the planting, weeding, and necessary cultivation, is veryexpensive. With the sugar-palm, however, nothing whateveris taken away but the juice itself the; foliage falls on theground and rots, giving back to it what it had taken and;the water and sugar in the juice being almost wholly derivedfrom the carbonic acid and aqueous vapour of the atmosphere,there is no impoverishment and a; plantation of thesepalms may be kept up on the same ground for an indefiniteperiod. Another most important consideration is, that thesetrees will grow on poor rocky soil and on the steep slopes ofravines and hillsides, where any ordinary cultivation is impossible,and a great extent of fertile land would thus be setfree for other purposes. Yet further, the labour required forsuch sugar plantations as these would be of a light and intermittentkind, exactly suited to a semi - civilised people, towhom severe and long-continuedlabour is never congenial.This combination of advantages appears to be so great that itseems possible that the sugar of the world mayin the futurebe produced from what would otherwise be almost wasteground and it is to be ; hoped that the experiment will soonbe tried in some of our tropical colonies, more especially asan Indian palm, Phoenix sylvestris, also produces abundanceof sugar, and might be tried in its native country.Other articles of food produced from palms are, cooking-