PART III. DISSECTION OF STOOLS. 

 (1) Scope of the work. 



The number of cane plants dissected for the purpose of this paper is very 

 large, as can be seen from the annexed table (pp. 99-100). It has been attempt- 

 ed to make them as representative as possible of the varieties collected on the 

 Coimbatore farm. The growth of the indigenous canes there is, in general, 

 fairly good, although some have shown themselves to be much more at home 

 than others in the farm conditions, but the thick canes are often not well grown, 

 and comparatively few of these were therefore chosen for dissection, and these 

 rather for distinguishing them from the Indian canes than for comparison 

 among themselves. As the canes of this class were thriving much better on 

 the garden and wet lands of the Nellikuppam plantations in South Arcot, 

 permission was obtained to send a man there for the completion of the series. 

 I am much indebted to Mr. Neilson for his kind assistance in this matter, and 

 the work seems to have been carefully done by Fieldman Rangaswami Filial, 

 who was in charge of it. We can thus add, to the series, the dissection of 24 

 clumps of well grown Red Mauritius canes, six each in wet and dry land, and 

 a like number of ratooned clumps. All of the other dissected plants were grown 

 on the Cane-breeding Station. 



In ranging over so wide a field of study, as indicated by the list referred 

 to and, so to speak, breaking new ground all the time, it was inevitable that 

 many side issues should present themselves, of sufficient interest for further 

 study. There were few mornings, devoted solidly to dissection, which passed 

 without leaving on the mind some new idea as to the direction of the work. 

 Most of these side issues have been prosecuted for a longer or shorter period, 

 to give place in their turn to others, which obtruded themselves by the occur- 

 rence of starthng examples of what had been casually noted before. The 

 danger of this varying aspect of the work is obvious, both from the point of 

 view of dissipation of energy and of obtaining a connected account, but the 

 observations have, without doubt, afforded an insight into the growth of the 

 cane which could not have been obtained otherwise. 



