Note 152 — Chapter XVI
Reading edition
The author of the Nouveau Voyage &c. tom. iii. p. 218. mentions having covered the claying house belonging to a mill, the property of his Order, with the tops of the sugar cane. I never saw this practised in Brazil, and indeed Labat says, that they were not commonly put to this purpose in the parts of which he writes. He says, that a species of reed was usually employed. In Brazil there is a kind of grass which answers the purpose, and is durable; and this quality, Labat says, that the cane tops possess; however in Brazil the leaves of the coco and of other palms are generally used.