326 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
canes has been established, and the sugar-content has not been noticeably 
decreased although one of the varieties used as a parent was rather low 
in percentage of saccharose, 
The choice of the Chunnee variety as one of the standards to be used 
for crossing purposes has even been more valuable than the experimentalists 
dared at one time to hope; for, of all the seedlings at the experiment 
stations, those that are the descendants of the Chunnee are least subject 
to root-disease, as well as to other maladies. They are, however, some- 
what hard, which is an inconvenience for crushing purposes, but it is not 
thought that this property is undesirable as it is counterbalanced by 
others that are useful. : 
Efforts are now being made to raise other races of plants: one— 
a more hardy race of seedlings—by crossing those seedlings already 
obtained with the immune variety, Chunnee; and the other—a richer 
race of seedlings—by crossing seedling canes with the Cheribon, and also 
with other seedlings. 
Although the results are not coming out exactly as anticipated, an 
examination of the following table will show that considerable improve- 
ment has been made. 
The contents of the following table have been extracted from that 
given by Kobus'* in 1905, embodying the experimental tests with the 
different varieties of seedling canes at the Hast Java Experiment Station. 
The figures given by Kobus have all been converted into English units, 
so that they may be used for comparison with the results obtained in the 
West Indies. It illustrates clearly how the yield of many seedling 
canes is much better than that of the standard variety—Cheribon. 
TABLE III. 
: | a Tons of cane Per cent. pure | Lbs, sug 
No. | Boil ae Are" ‘a sigar in eae | pee aueen 
Cheribon | — Light. 37-9 Aik | 9,928 
146 | r 62:8 | 13°55 | 19,085 
213 | . 62-9 13°34 | 19,250 
247 B. | } 701 11-54 | 20,394 
By this it can be seen that many of the seedling varieties give an 
estimated yield of sugar per acre of about double that given by the old 
standard variety. 
So far, no records have come to hand from Java to show that hand 
cross-pollination has been successful, but now that it has been shown to 
be possible in several different countries there can be no reason why the 
raising of hybrid sugar-canes under control should not be as possible in 
Java as elsewhere. 
CUBA. 
Experiments have been conducted with the introduction of standard 
varieties and seedlings from Java, Queensland, and the British West Indies.. 
After considerable testing, many of these are being introduced into the 
general cultivation. 5B. 208 has been giving excellent results both in per- 
centage of saccharose and in purity of juice. 
