50 TILLERING IN INDlAlsr StJGARCANES 



dormant throughout its life, or may shoot out at once or at a later stage in the 

 growth of the plant as a whole. There is thus ample provision at hand for all 

 the needs of the plant, whatever circumstances may arise. However severe 

 the treatment above ground, there is a reserve of branches ready to be develop- 

 ed below, and, if one of the branches is either accidentally or purposely cut 

 off, its place is taken by the emergence of one of its buds ; and, if such a cut 

 branch is placed in the ground, it is capable of sending out its roots under the 

 stimulus of moisture and darkness, protruding its buds and developing into 

 an independent plant. 



Advantage has been taken of these facts in the planting of the sugarcane 

 in the field. Cultivated sugarcane is propagated from cut pieces of the stem 

 and is always likely to be. Seedlings, although undoubtedly a much cheaper 

 form of reproduction, do not inherit the good qualities of their parents uniform- 

 ly, and many of them, even of the best parentage, are quite worthless from the 

 sugar producing point of view. Although extremely easily reared in many 

 cases, they require more individual attention than is justified under crop 

 conditions, and they take longer to mature. While in South India, canes 

 grown from cuttings take, on the average, twelve months to mature, seedlings 

 only become full grown when they are about eighteen months old. Besides 

 this, there are many good kinds which do not produce seed at all, either because 

 of infertility or the total absence of flowering. In vegetative reproduction 

 the good qualities of the variety are rigidly handed down from generation to 

 generation, although there appears to be a gradual diminution in vigour as 

 the years pass. 



The vegetative method of reproduction is rendered easy, as explained 

 above, in that each joint is furnished with its bud and a number of root primor- 

 dia, and both of these require little stimulus to grow out. The condition of 

 the bud may be compared with that of the germ in the seed, in that it is placed 

 in immediate connection with a mass of readily assimilable nutriment in the 

 joint to which it belongs. It is, however, much more fully developed than the 

 serm, and it takes little time, under suitable conditions of moisture and 

 warmth, for it to produce a mass of roots and leaves. The development of 

 this bud need not detain us here. It is practically identical with that of the 

 shoots described above, being merely a branch of the plant of a higher order. 

 A series of stages are shown in Plates VII and VIII. 



In planting, the whole cane is sometimes laid in a furrow, lightly covered 

 with earth and watered ; in many places, only the upper, immature parts 

 of the cane are used and these, called " tops," are placed slanting in the ground ; 



