▪ I. ratoon, n.
(rəˈtuːn)
Also 8–9 ratt-.
[ad. Sp. retoño a fresh shoot or sprout.]
A new shoot or sprout springing up from the root of the sugar-cane after it has been cropped.
| 1779 Phil. Trans. LXVII. 232, I then took each rattoon apart, and found it fastened to a joint of these last canes. a 1818 M. G. Lewis Jrnl. W. Ind. (1834) 88 After these original plants have been cut, their roots throw up suckers which in time become canes, and are called ratoons. 1887 Century Mag. Nov. 111 Next year the cane sprouts from the stubble, and is called first ratoons... The second year it sprouts again, and is called second ratoons. |
| transf. 1894 Pop. Sci. Monthly XLIV. 493 The Jamaican reference to a meal made off the remnants of a previous feast as ‘eating the rattoons’. |
| attrib. 1777 Robertson Hist. Amer. (1778) I. 459 On the banks of the Essequebo, thirty crops of ratoon canes have been raised successively. 1880 J. S. Cooper Coral Lands I. xviii. 213 When cut in March or April the ratoon canes are made to grow in cold dry weather. |
▪ II. ratoon, v.
(rəˈtuːn)
[f. prec. or ad. Sp. retoñar to sprout again, f. retoño.]
a. intr. Of plants, esp. the sugar-cane: To send up new shoots after being cut down or cropped. † Said also of the ground.
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica 130 Where the ground is observed to produce a kind plant and to rattoon well. 1789 Trans. Soc. Arts I. 260 Some sorts of Cotton did not rattoon or stool so well as others. 1856 Olmsted Slave States 666 In the West India plantations the cane is frequently allowed to ratoon for eight successive crops. 1880 J. S. Cooper Coral Lands I. xviii. 214 Such a cane must be hardy and healthy, grow rapidly, ratoon quickly and often. |
b. trans. To cut down (plants) to induce them to send up new shoots.
| 1925 Glasgow Herald 23 Apr. 14/2 Reports indicate that ratooned cotton has suffered. Ratooned plants produce a much earlier crop than new plants and..Zululand had ratooned a considerable quantity this year. |
Hence raˈtooned ppl. a., raˈtooning vbl. n.
| 1790 Phil. Trans. LXXX. 357 He makes a greater revenue than the Grenada planter on the present mode of rattooning. 1882 Spons' Encycl. Manuf. V. 1868 By constant ratooning, the produce of sugar per acre..yields [etc.]. 1925 Ratooned [see sense b of the vb.]. |