Salt is another valuable manure for this crop. Dr. Nugent, in a Report made to the Agricultural Society of Antigua, observes that salt has been found a valuable auxiliary in cultivating the sugar cane. Many trials of it, he says, have been made during successive seasons, applied generally to the extent of about nine or ten bushels per acre. It destroys grubs and other insects, and gives the canes an increased vigor and ability to resist drought. It is a singular remark of the intelligent traveller, M. de Humboldt, while speaking of the practice adopted in the Missions of the Orinoco, when a coco-nut plantation is made, of throwing a certain quantity of salt into the hole which receives the nut; that of all the plants cultivated by man there are only the sugar cane, the plantain, the mammee, and the Avocado pear, which endure equally irrigation with fresh and salt water. In the West Indies, when the cane is affected by what is called there the _blast_, which is a withering or drying up of the plants, an unfailing remedy is found to be watering them with an infusion of dung in salt water.[21] _Preparation of soil_.--In the Rajahmundry district, during the months of April and May, the ground is frequently ploughed, until brought into a very fine tilth. About the end of May, or beginning of June, the rains usually commence, and the canes are then to be planted. If the rains do not set in so early, the land is flooded artificially, and when converted into a soft mud, whether by the rain or by flooding, the canes are planted. In Mysore the ground is watered for three days, and then, after drying for the same period, ploughing commences, this operation being repeated five times during the following eight days. The clods during this time are broken small by an instrument called _colkudali_. The field is then manured and ploughed a sixth time. After fifteen days it is ploughed again, twice in the course of one or two days. After a lapse of eight days it is ploughed a ninth time. Altogether these operations occupy about forty-four days. For planting, which is done six days, an implement called _yella kudali_ is employed. In Dinajpoor, "the field, from about the middle of October until about the 10th of January, receives ten or twelve double ploughings, and after each is smoothed with the _moyi_. During the last three months of this time it is manured with cow-dung and mud from ponds and ditches. On this account, the land fit for sugar cane is generally divided into fields by wide ditches, into which much mud is washed by the rain, and is again thrown on the fields when the country dries, and leaves it enriched by innumerable aquatic vegetables and animals that have died as the water left them. When the ploughing has been completed, the field is manured with ashes and oil-cake."