7. _The Flowering_ "is the last accident they reckon upon, although it scarce deserves the name, for it rarely happens, and never but to a very small proportion of some few fields. Those canes that flower have very little juice left, and it is by no means so sweet as that of the rest." In the Brazils, the fact of the slave trade being at an end must influence the future produce of sugar, and attention has been lately chiefly directed to coffee, cotton, and other staples. The exports of that empire in 1842, were 59,000 tons; in 1843, 54,500; in 1844, 76,400; in 1845, 91,000; average of these four years 69,720. The exports in the next four years averaged 96,150 tons, viz:--76,100, in 1846; 96,300, in 1847; 112,500, in 1848; and 99,700, in 1849. _Mode of Cultivation in Brazil_.--The lands in Brazil are never grubbed up, either for planting the sugar cane, or for any other agricultural purposes. The inconveniences of this custom are perceivable more particularly in high lands; because all of these that are of any value are naturally covered with thick woods. The cane is planted amongst the numerous stumps of trees, by which means much ground is lost, and as the sprouts from these stumps almost immediately spring forth (such is the rapidity of vegetation) the cleanings are rendered very laborious. These shoots require to be cut down sometimes, even before the cane has found its way to the surface of the ground. The labor likewise is great every time a piece of land is to be put under cultivation, for the wood must be cut down afresh; and although it cannot have reached the same size which the original timber had attained, still as several years are allowed to pass between each period at which the ground is planted, the trees are generally of considerable thickness. The wood is suffered to remain upon the land until the leaves become dry; then it is set on fire, and these are destroyed with the brush wood and the smaller branches of the trees. Heaps are now made of the remaining timber, which is likewise burnt. This process is universally practised in preparing land for the cultivation of any plant. I have often heard the method much censured as being injurious in the main to the soil, though the crop immediately succeeding the operation may be rendered more luxuriant by it. I have observed that the canes which grew upon the spots where the heaps of timber and large branches of trees had been burnt, were of a darker and richer green than those around them, and that they likewise over-topped them. After the plant-canes, or those of the first year's growth, are taken from the lands, the field-trash, that is the dried leaves and stems of the canes which remain upon the ground, are set fire to, with the idea that the ratoons,--that is, the sprouts from the old roots of the canes,--spring forth with more luxuriance, and attain a greater size by means of this practice. The ratoons of the first year are called in Brazil, _socas_; those of the