82 



HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, 



CHEMICAL SELECTION OF PLANT CANES. 



The selection of tops for planting from canes of high sucrose contents is 

 sometimes described as chemical selection. This selection of cuttings may be 

 made (a) from different parts of the same cane; (b) from a selected single 

 cane out of many in the same stool; or (c) from a selected stool with a high 

 average sucrose content. 



There are some advocates of this method of improving the sugar cane. 

 On the other hand Harrison is of the opinion that it is useless "to expend 

 time, labor and money in attempts to raise improved canes by any system of 

 selection of tops for planting." 



It is advanced that the richest canes are simply those that are ripest and 

 the best nourished; and that tops taken from such "richest canes" have a 

 lower "germinating" power, and, possibly, are more liable, on account of 

 their extra sweetness, to the attack of insect and fungoid pests. 



SEEDLING SUGAR CANES. 



Until within thirteen years ago it was generally understood that owing 

 to the fact that the sugar cane for many ages had been propagated by cuttings 

 or slips, it had lost the power of producing fertile seed. The flowering pani- 

 cles (arrows) were often met with, but the seed was practically unknown. It 

 is on record that canes, evidently grown from seed, were observed at Bar- 

 bados in 1848 and 1850. At that time they were regarded merely as curiosities 

 and no systematic attempts were made to grow them with the view of raising 

 new varieties. The number of fertile seeds in each panicle is very small — 

 possibly not more than 10 to 30 among several thousand spikelets — depending 

 on the variety. Many canes produce neither flowers nor seed. What may be 

 regarded as the efifective discovery of seed in the sugar cane was made almost 

 simultaneously by Soltwedel in Java and Bovell and Harrison at Barbados in 

 1888.* Fungoid disease at that time had attacked many of the standard sugar 

 canes, and in both the East and West Indies energetic efforts were being made 

 to raise new canes equal, if not superior to the existing canes, but less liable to 

 disease. The discovery above referred to was greatly appreciated, and was 

 immediately utilized. Seedling canes have in recent years been extensively 

 raised. The difficulties to be overcome are considerable, but the experiments 

 now generally carried on on scientific lines afford the hope that canes yielding 

 a larger tonnage per acre and possessing high saccharine contents will event- 

 ually be obtained. 



The accompanying illustration indicates the parts of the flower of the 

 sugar cane, the character of the seed and the mode of germination ; the refer- 

 ences to the detail sketches are as follow : 



*Tournal Linncan Society, xxviii., 197. 



