VARIATION IX THE CANE AND CANE VARIETIES 35 



Inheritance in Seedlings. — In attempting to discuss inheritance in cane 

 breeding, it must not be forgotten that the older varieties of canes whence 

 the seedlings themselves are descended are also seedhngs and the descendants 

 of seedlings. Accordingly, the study of inheritance from a variety should 

 not begin imtil the type has become fixed by repeated selection of generations 

 of self-fertilized seedhngs. Another difl&culty arises, since it is by no means 

 sure that what is considered a variety is by any means a pure strain. Self- 

 fertilized seedlings have a great tendenc}^ to resemble the parent, and, as 

 pointed out b}- Harrison, 20 a plantation originally Bourbon (to mention one 

 example), in the course of time may become, if long periods of ratoonage 

 are allowed, a mixture of Bourbon and Bourbon-descended seedlings. 



Apart from these considerations there appears to be much difference of 

 opinion. In the first edition of this book the statement was made : " The 

 factors governing the properties of seedling canes have been studied in great 

 detail by Harrison and Jenman^^ and by Went and Prinsen Geerligs.22 

 Briefly it appears from their work that the cane is enormously subject 

 to variation, and that there is but httle tendency towards the inheritance 

 of the properties of either parent." Tliis statement does not now appear 

 to be true, looked at in the light of later more detailed study, as is evident 

 from the abstract of Harrison's work given further on. Any confusion 

 which may arise would seem to be due to the differences in results as obtained 

 from hj'bridized and inbred seedlings. 



In Java more definite statements on inheritance have been made, and the 

 standpoint there appears to be as follows : — 



" Pure-bred seedliii9;s always inherit the character of the parent cane to a 

 marked degree. That is to say, the seedlings whcse parents are both of one and the 

 same variety will possess the characters of that variety, and if pure breeding is 

 carried on for several or more generations there will be no niarked deviation from 

 the characters of the original variety. Pure breeding, therefore, should ser\'e to 

 perpetuate any desired strain. 



" The seedling'^ resulting from a crossing of tsvo varieties of cane may show 

 great variations among themselves, but each of them wiU show either a combination 

 of the characters of the parent canes or characters intermediately bet^veen those 

 of the parent canes, and none of them will show characters foreign to both parents. 

 If, for example, Cheribon and Chunnee are crossed, a great variety of canes maj- be 

 obtained ; but they will all range between the two parents, none will have leaves 

 broader than those of Cheribon or narrower than those of Chunnee, and likewise 

 none will have sticks thicker than those of Cheribon ov thinner than those of 

 Chunnee. 



" If a hj^brid variety is close-bred the resulting canes will all possess the mixed 

 characters of the hybrid parent and there will be no reversions to the unmixed 

 type of either grandparent. A hybrid variety from its very inception, therefore, 

 is considered a fixed strain, which, if bred close, will always come true from seed." 



The Work of Harrison and his Colleagues. 



At the West Indian Agricultural Conference, 1912, Harrison, Stockdale 

 and Ward presented a paper — " Sugar Cane Experiments in British Guiana " 

 — which contained an account of the development of the methods used and 

 results obtained by Harrison and his co-workers. The following pages are 

 based on this report. 



I. Early in his studies Harrison found that certain canes of little value 

 as sugar producers — the Kara-Kar-awa, the Brekeret — were prolific parents 

 under such conditions as rendered cross-fertilization very improbable, a 

 view afterwards definitely established for the first-named variety. The 

 majority of seedlings obtained (two thirds at least) resembled the parent, 



