C, A. BARBER 51 



but in India, as a rule, the whole cane is cut up into pieces called " sets," each 

 of which has a definite number of joints with healthy living buds. Almost 

 all canes germinate readily from sets, and, in India, they seem to produce 

 healthier and stronger plants than the tops ; but cases have been met with, 

 as in Seema of the Godavari District, where sets are generally infertile and 

 tops have to be used.^ The sets in South India usually contain three joints ; 

 germination takes place more rapidly than in North India, and, if the field has 

 not sprouted within a week or ten days, it is customary to plant again. In 

 North India the climate at the time of planting is very cold and, not infrequent- 

 ly, a month elapses before the shoots appear above ground. 



When, in a warm climate, the sets are placed horizontally in shallow trenches 

 and watered, they at once send forth roots and the buds burst. Although , 

 possibly, in ideal planting, it would be best to place the sets so that the bud 

 plane lies parallel with the surface, this is not generally attended to nor essen- 

 tial, for the shoots are negatively geotropic and quickly find their wav round 

 the set to the surface of the ground. ^ The root eyes protrude and form a 

 circlet of fibres round the set, those beneath growing much more strono-lv 

 than those facing upwards, and these roots supply the stream of water which 

 washes the nutriment stored in the joint to the developing bud. But verv 

 soon the lower joints of the new shoot form their own roots — thicker, whiter, 

 and longer. When this occurs the shoot forms a new, independent plant, 

 and the decayed joint from which it has arisen is left behind much as the cast 

 off seed- coats in a germinated seedling. Connection with the plants developed 

 from the other buds in the same set is thus entirely severed. Lateral branching 

 takes place very early in the young plant, and these branches also produce 

 their own roots, and, in a couple of months, the set plant has attained to the 

 size and form of the six months seedling, and is growing much more rapidly. 



The caneaof different ages in the same clump are sometimes very different. 

 This has been already noted in the remarks on early and late canes. But 

 this difference is much greater in seedlings than in canes grown from cuttinf^s. 



1 Barber, C. A. Sclent ific Report of the Samalkota Agricultural Station for the jxar 

 ending 31st March, 1906. Bulletin of Madras Agricultural Department, 1907, p. 24. 



2 Since writing the above our attention has been drawn to the following. Kulkarni, in 

 Dharwar, has made a series of experiments in planting sets, each with one bud only, and the 

 set placed so that this bud is upward. Ho only allowed the mother shoot, to grow and its 

 branches were carefully removed. He claims that, by this means, sprouting takes place one 

 week earlier, all the canes ripen together and a larger number are obtained jx-r acre. 

 (Kulkarni, M. L. Experiments in planting sugarcane sets with single eye-buds, etc Agr. Jul , 

 Ind., Special Science Congress Number, 1918.) 



See also p. 102 and Plate VII, fig. 1 of this Memoir. 



