Digital Grainger

An Online Edition of The Sugar-Cane (1764)

59

  • Graze its polluted brinks, till rolling time
  • Have fin’d the water, and destroyed the bane.
  • ‘Tis safer then to mingle nightshade’s juice1 [95]
  • With flour, and throw it liberal ‘mong thy Canes:
  • They touch not this; its deadly scent they fly,

  • And sudden colonize some distant vale.

  • SHALL the muse deign to sing of humble weeds,

  • That check the progress of the imperial cane? [100]

  • IN every soil, unnumber’d weeds will spring;
  • Nor fewest in the best: (thus oft we find
  • Enormous vices taint the noblest souls!)
  • These let thy little gang,2 with skillful hand,
  • Oft as they spread abroad, and oft they spread; [105]
  • Careful pluck up, to swell thy growing heap
  • Of rich manure.3 And yet some weeds arise,
  • Of aspect mean, with wondrous virtues fraught:
  • (And doth not oft uncommon merit dwell
  • In men of vulgar looks, and trivial air?) [110]
  • Such, planter, be not thou asham’d to save

VER. 95. ‘Tis safer then to mingle nightshade’s juice] See the article Solanum in Newman’s Chemistry published by Dr. Lewis.4 There is a species of East-India animal, called a Mungoes,5 which bears a natural antipathy to rats. Its introduction into the Sugar-Islands would, probably, effectuate the extirpation of this destructive vermin.

  1. Nightshade most likely refers to Atropa belladonna, a poisonous plant also known as deadly nightshade or belladonna. The foliage, fruits, and roots are all highly toxic, and consuming only ten berries can kill an adult human. Its native range is England to central and southern Europe to Iran. ↩︎

  2. Enslaved children. Almost all enslaved persons on the plantation were forced to work, including the young. The tasks children were assigned included weeding, cutting grass to feed the cattle, washing clothes, and serving in the main house. ↩︎

  3. Compost. ↩︎

  4. William Lewis (bap. 1708-d. 1781) was an English physician and experimental chemist. Author of Chemical Works of Caspar Neumann, M.D. (1759). Neumann (1683-1737) was a German chemist. ↩︎

  5. The mongoose refers to a small carnivore and member of the family Herpestidae. There are many different species of mongoose, all native to the Old World. After the eighteenth century, the mongoose was purposefully introduced to the Caribbean and Pacific islands to exterminate the rat population. Because the mongoose also eats birds, amphibians, and reptiles, it has contributed to the destruction of local biodiversity on those islands and is considered an invasive species. ↩︎