138 STUDIES IN INDIAN SUGARCANE SEEDLINGS 



Bihar) show this obliqueness very markedly. There is, in fact, general evidence 

 that if there is any obliqueness in the parents, it comes out strongly in the 

 seedlings and more so still when the latter are reproduced from cuttings. 



The thirty-eight 1911-13 seedlings have now been grown for several years 

 successively from c.uttings, and notes and photographs have been taken at 

 various stages in their growth. Cheni is marked by considerable obliqueness 

 in its young shoots, and this has come out in the seedlings, all of which show 

 this character in varying degree. By comparing the photographs taken it 

 has been noted that, while the oblique character is distinctly traceable in all 

 the seedlings at four months from sowing the seed, it increases until the seventh 

 month, and then diminishes until, in the tenth, there is little trace of it left, 

 the shoots gradually becoming erect as cane is formed. On making a similar 

 comparison in the case of young shoots of these seedlings planted from cuttings, 

 the obliqueness seems to be greatest at four months and, by six months, it 

 has more or less disapj)eared. A series of photographs taken of growing sets 

 of Madras No. 2 shows this change in habit very well, the angle of growth 

 having been traced, in several cases, from germination until flowering. The 

 mature cane is seen to be sinuous in shape, commencing at an oblique angle, 

 this followed by further depression and finally erecting itself as the flowering 

 period is approached. A paper on this subject was read by M. R. Ry. T. S. 

 Venkataraman. and myself at the Madras Science Congress in January 1915, 

 and some of the lantern illustrations are here reproduced (Plate XXII). 



It is natural to connect this early obliqueness of the shoots with a more 

 or less straggling mature habit of the canes, and there appears to be some reason 

 for doing this, in that Chin and Saretlia, when growing luxuriantly in the field 

 are liable to fall and have to be propped. But it has been difficult to trace 

 this connection in many cases and, on the cane-breeding station, the heavy 

 winds and umisual rains during the past season have caused almost all the 

 canes to fall and they have had to be raised and tied to bamboos, thus hiding 

 their natural habit. Some canes showing early obliqueness quickly recover 

 erectness, as for instance Madras No. 2 Seedling (Plate XXIII), but others, 

 and especially some Saretha seedlings, remain prostrate for a great ])art of 

 their existence. The time at which oblique shoots raise themselves and 

 become ascending is at present undetermined in a large number of cases of 

 seedlings, although it is fairly early in most cultivated canes. The seedlings 

 of any batch, especially of North Indian canes, vary greatly in early erectness 

 and, in consideration of its important agricultural bearing, marked attention 

 lias been paid to this character in classifying the seedlings in 1914-16, 



