1919.] SUGAR CANE EXPERIMENTS. 141 



The results from the plant canes in Field 1, St. Augustine, are given 

 in Table IV. These canes were tested at the end of March and April 

 when they were 16J and 17^ months old respectively. Generally the 

 results show a substantial improvement in the quality of the juice when 

 tested in April compared with the results obtained in March. The 

 lower results obtained in April from Badilla and B. 14761 as also the 

 verj' small improvement shown for B. 10650 is due to the fact that the 

 stools selected for analysis remained in the field for seven days after 

 they had been topped owing to an accident to the cane-mill. The juice 

 had a decided acid reaction and the deterioration of the juice is further 

 shown by the increase in the pei-centage of glucose and the decrease in 

 the quotient of puritj'. It is probable that the same marked improve- 

 ment would have been obtained for B. 10650 and B. 14761, under 

 normal conditions, as shown for the other varities. The Badilla and H ? 

 appear to have come to maturity by the end of March. These results 

 confirm those obtained during the past two years viz. : that with few 

 exceptions, plant canes do not come to maturity at St. Augustine 

 before the month of April. 



The highest results were obtained from M. P. 55 a seedling from 

 Mauritius, but this variety owes its position solely to the high tonnage of 

 canes reaped per acre, for as will be seen in the table below, the quality 

 of the juice is much inferior to that of any of the other varieties. The 

 next best results were obtained from B. 14761, Ba. 6032, B. 3922, 

 B. 6308, B. 156, B. 6388 and H. ? Eighteen varieties have given 

 better results than the Bourbon and the average for the whole field was. 

 33"58 tons of cane per acre. 



