1922. 



SUGAB CANE EXPERIMENTS 1919-21. 



189 



Good and Bad Parent Plants. 

 As in previous years, it has been found that certain varieties are 

 useless for raising new seedUngs, and the detection of good parents 

 seems to be of great importance as will be seen below. 



One hundred and forty-four natural hyhrids and sixty-four self 

 fertilised seedlings were obtained. 



Table I. — Trinidad Seedlings Raised in 1919. 

 Comparative results from various parent canes. 



N.H. means Natural Hybrid; S.F. means Self -fertilised seedlings. 



From the above it will be seen that none of the seedlings raised from 

 H. 27, B. 6308, D. 116, B. 156, and Ba. 7924 gave juice of sufficiently 

 good quality to warrant their being kept for further trial. The best 

 results were again obtained from H. '? and L. 511. No seedlings were 

 obtained from B. 6450, B. 6835, or the Bourbon ; from all of which 

 promising seedlings had been raised in the previous year. The two first 

 did not arrow at St. Augustine and the seed from the Bourbon was not 

 fertile, although obtained from several districts of the island. 



First Selection of 1919 Seedlings. 

 The following are the results of the seedlings raised in 1919, which 

 have been selected for their combined field characters and analytical 

 results, and are being kept for a farther trial. They were planted out in 

 the field from bamboo pots during February and March, 1920, and were 

 consequently 13 to 14 months old when tested between April 28 and 

 May 25, 1921. The rainfall from March 1, 1920 to April 30, 1921, was 

 51-27 inches. Only 0-22 inches of rain fell from March 15, to 

 May 31, 1920, so that the seedlings had a bad start. On the other hand 

 8-24 inches of rain were registered during February, March and 

 April, 1921, and the seedlings were growing during this period instead of 

 maturing with the result that the quality of the juice was comparatively 

 poorer than if they had been through a normal dry season. 



(1) A Hawaiian cane of which the number was lost on the journey when first 

 introduced. 



