SELECTIOy A>-D PREPAEATIOy OF SEED. 



117 



Variety Liberian. 



Source of seed. 



Tennessee. 

 Ohio 



Virginia 



.Alabama 



South Carolina. 

 Alabama 



i Local naine. 



'Oomseeana . - 

 Liberian 



Chinese. -. 



'^umac 



-jlmphee 



samac. 



Mav 11th. 



Mav 14th. 



Days to ;.\verage weieht 

 i maturity. , stripped stalks. 



Few up. All tip. 



AUnp. 

 Few up. 



Variety Early Amber. 



From the above it would appear, that there was no difierence notice- 

 ably due to the locality wlience the seed was obtaiued. either in the 

 rapidity of germination, in the weight of the crop produced, or in the 

 time requiretl for maturity. 



In this last particular, there is a great difference, as, for example, 

 in those varieties classed as Liberian and Honduras : but it will be ob- 

 served, the si^ecimen of Liberian requiring most time to reach maturitv 

 came from Alabama ; the sj>ecimen of Honduras which required the 

 longest time to mature came from Texas ; and the specimen from Mis- 

 souri was practically identical, not oijly in this respect, but in weight 

 of crop. 



The Testing of Seed. 



Owing to the fact that, through lack of care in the harvesting and 

 curing of the seed, its vitality n^ay be destroyed, it is a precaution 

 which should never be omitted by the farmer, that he should, 

 shortly before the time for planting, make a careful test of his seed, in 

 order to determine its vitality ; otherwise, he may find, when it is too 

 late, that his fields require replanting, the season being too short to 

 permit this with any assurance of a mature crop of cane. 



In order to test the seed, it is only necessary to take a shallow box, 

 witli a cover (an empty blacking-box will do, but it should be carefully 

 washed clean) ; the box should be half filled with clean sand — not 

 earth nor gravel, but sand — and this sand should be saturated with 



