Vol. XVII. No. 419. 



THE AGKICULTOKAL NEWS. 



149 



■writer is aware, the only evidence that the 'mutants' were 

 pure for the new charactfrs is Mr. Kearney's assertion that 

 such was the case. No geneticist would accept evidence so 

 meagre, when such an important biological point has to be 

 decided upon. 



The mutants are said also to be comparable with those 

 of Oenothera Lamankia/ia, as described by de Vries. The 

 scientific world owes a debt of gratitude to Professor J. P. 

 Lotsy for his able criticism of the Lamarckiana question- 

 He says: 'De Vries has shown that O. Lamankiana is 

 a heterozygote and he has shown nothing else; all thfe rest 

 is mere hypothesis. . . . The behaviour of O. Lamarckiana 

 gives not the slightest cause to suppose that the aberrant 

 forms thrown by it owe their origin to a process of mutation; 

 they can perfectly well be explained without resorting to 

 ^n "explanation" lying outside the pale of experience, by 

 the simple fact which the experiments that have been 

 published all tend to show, viz., that O. Lamarckiana is 

 a mixture of heterozygotes of different constitutions, throwing 

 rogues (the pretended mutants) by a process of Mendelian 

 segregation.' 



In the same way no mutative hypothesis is necessary 

 to explain Mr. Kearney's results. If, as he says, he does 

 not think that they can be explained by the hypothesis of 

 reconstruction of Mendelian factons, it is for him to demon- 

 .strale scientifically that this hypothesis is inapplicable. 



S.C.H. 



EXPERIMENTS IN SUGAR-CANE 

 CULTIVATION IN ST. OROIX. 



A series of experiments, designed to ascertain the 

 relative value of planting canes on the flat or between banks, 

 has been conducted for the last couple of years on the Slob 

 Experimental Station, St. Croix. A report for the year 

 1917-18 by the Manager of the Experimental Station, 

 Mr. Edward Gedde, has been forwarded to the Imperial 

 Commissioner of Agriculture for the West Indies. From 

 this it appears that after three years' experiments Mr. Gedde is 

 quite convinced that, under similar conditions of rainfall and 

 cultivation, the system of planting on the fiat leads to 

 a considerable increase in weight of canes reaped per acre, 

 at least in plant canes. Experiments with green dressing, as 

 compared with pen manure, have given somewhat inconclu- 

 sive results, for when applied to canes cultivated on the flat, 

 the green dressing led to a less yield than was obtained on the 

 control plot to which no manure was applied, whereas pen 

 manure, applied on the fiat, led to a very large increase. 

 On the banked field pen manure again produced the great- 

 est yield, but green dressing produced almost 50 per cent, 

 higher returns than were given by the unmanured plot. Another 

 experiment with regard to pen manure of different 

 conditions seems to .show that pen manure mixed with turfy 

 earth (Mr. Gedde does not say iu what proportion) caused 

 an appreciable increase of yield over that from plots manured 

 either with pen manure from a covered pen, or with pen 

 manure prepared in the open. 



Although from experiments conducted in several of 

 the smaller English islands, the cultivation of alfalfa as 

 a forage crop has not appeared worth further trial, it would 

 seem that in St. Croix alfalfa has succeeded fairly well. 

 Mr. Gedde advises planters in St. Croix to cultivate it, at 

 least to a sniaii i xtent. 



Further H.xperiments (HI ')]■ t ition crops best suited 

 for cultivatio.i with sugar-r n . . •'• 's ici the best distance 



apart for planting caces are being carried out. Another 

 interesting series of experiments which Mr. Gedde has 

 planned is one to investigate what difference, if any, will 

 result from using as plants, (1) tops from plant canes 

 only, (2) tops of first ratoons, (.3) tops of old ratoons, and 

 (4) plants of ripe cane joints. 



CHEMICAL CONTROL IN SUGAR 

 FACTORIES. 



The importance of what may be termed an exact chemi- 

 cal audit of the working of sugar factories has been many 

 times emphasized in this journal. An in.stance of this 

 importance in the factories in Java is mentioned by 

 Dr. Prinsen Geerligs in an article in the International 

 Sugar Joi/rna/, February 1918. He says: 



'It has been observed that the mill control, as required 

 by the Experiment Station, was much too intricate and too 

 troublesome for practical use and that considerable simplifi- 

 cation might be considered. The result of recent deliberations 

 was, however, that the figures required were really necessary 

 to obtain a good insight into the milling work, and that it was 

 obligatory to collect these data in order to serve as a basis for 

 improvement as soon as a fallingoff in the efficiency of the 

 mills was noticed. 



'An example of the excellent results of careful mill 

 control is given by the fact that large losses of sugar, which 

 till recently escaped detection, are now brought to light by 

 the close control. 



'It was originally the custom to ascertain the amount of 

 sugar in juice and in bagasse, and to consider the amount of 

 sugar in cane to be the sum of these two, making no allowance 

 for unaccountable losses during milling. The new control 

 records the amount and the sugar content of the different 

 mill juices separately, and that of the total of the mixed 

 juice; and it found in many instances that the amount of 

 sugar in the mixed juice was smaller than that of the sum 

 of the component parts. This strange phenomenon could 

 not be ascribed to a personal error, as the weighing and 

 determinations were all made on the same scales, with the 

 same instruments, and by the same individuals, and not- 

 withstanding, always tended in the same direction. It was 

 found that in the tanks, gutters, collectors, etc. of the juices, 

 especially those of the maceration with last mill juice, 

 such huge amounts of bacteria, yeasts, and fungi could 

 accumulate, that large quantities of the sugar, amounting 

 to as much as 6 per cent, of the total quantity, were 

 lost by inversion- The new control can detect those 

 losses, which may be rather easily overcome by contin- 

 ually cleaning the conducts through which the juices pass, 

 or even by using double sets of tanks, suction pipes, collectors, 

 etc., of which one set is cleaned and disinfected, while the 

 other one is working. This rather simple device has already 

 reduced these unaccountable losses in many factories to an 

 insignificant fraction of their former sum, thereby proving 

 that they had really existed, and were not a consequence of 

 errors. ' 



DEPARTMENT NEWS. 

 News has been received that Sir Francis Watts, 

 K.C.M.G., the Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture 

 for the West Indi' s, has arrived at Nassau, Bahamas, 



