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The canes were of that species known as "ratoons" suckers from old roots and the thick bunches at their bases, as well as the tall columns, enabled us to pass among them unobserved. Even had it been day, we might have approached the house unseen. We soon reached the garden-paling. Here we stopped to reconnoitre the ground. A short survey was sufficient.
The rich Mississippi bottoms need no manure; a rotation of maize with cane affords them the necessary recuperative action. The cane of last year's plant is left in stubble, and renews its growth this spring under the title of ratoons.
The first growth from these cuttings is called plant cane; after these are taken off the roots send out ratoons or shoots from which the crop of one or two years, and sometimes longer, is taken. If the soil is not rich and moist replanting is more frequently necessary and in places like Louisiana, where there is annual frost, planting must be done each year.
"It matured in sixteen months in that climate, and I was ready, just ready and no more, with the mill for the grinding. Naturally, it did not all mature at once, but I had planted in such succession that I could grind for nine months steadily, while more was being planted and the ratoons were springing up. "I had my troubles the first several days.
"Old Gelid, Longtram, Steady, and myself, had been eating ratoons, at the Fortner's domicile, and it was about nine in the evening when I got home.
The rows soon increase in width by the growth of suckers, and the throwing up of ratoons surface roots thrown off from the original plant, which send up plants from below the ground as distinct from suckers, which come from the base or even higher up the stem of a fruiting plant.
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