VARIATION IN THE CANE AND CANE VARIETIES 33 



definitely established in May of 1858,* when an overseer at the Highlands 

 Plantation in Barbados saw and recognised seedling canes growing in the 

 field. He reported their presence to Mr. J. W. Parris, the proprietor, who 

 grew these self-sown seedlings to maturity, and afterwards grew four and 

 a half acres of seedling canes. This discovery was put on record in the 

 Barbados Liberal of February I2th, 1859, an( i was confirmed shortly 

 afterwards by several local planters. The question was followed up by 

 Drumm 14 in Barbados, who experimented in hybridization, and devised the 

 method of " bagging " the inflorescence referred to later. It does not appear 

 certain that Drumm ever obtained hybrids, though his communications 

 on the matter in the local Barbados press obtained wide publicity in the 

 Sugar Cane, the Produce Markets Review, and in Australia. 



In 1862 self-sown seedlings were also observed in Java 15 ; in 1871 

 these were obtained of intent by Le Merle 16 in Reunion, and about the same 

 time the Baron da Villa Franca wrote as if the fertility of the cane was a 

 matter of common knowledge in Brazil. All these observations, however, 

 were forgotten, and systematic research work dates from the re-discovery 

 by Soltwedel in Java in 1888 and by Harrison and Bovell in Barbados in 

 1889. . 



Long previous to this, however, it is possible that seedling selection had 

 been practised by primitive peoples, and it is almost certain that it was as 

 seedlings that some of the cultivated varieties of cane were originally segre- 

 gated by some intelligent and observant savage. Mr. Muir has told the 

 writer that he saw, during his travels in search of a parasite for the Hawaiian 

 beetle borer, such a process obtaining amongst the New Guinea natives. 

 A seedling cane, or any newly introduced sexual variant, is then in no wise 

 different from any of the older varieties, the sexual origin of which has been 

 forgotten. 



In Java at first the fertility of the cane was regarded as of academic 

 interest only, since it was believed that the Black Cheribon cane had reached 

 commercial perfection. The development of the Sereh disease in the 'nineties 

 was the stimulant to the use of this method of research in order to obtain 

 improved varieties. In the British West Indies research was begun at once, 

 and was mainly undertaken by Harrison, by Bovell, and by Jenman. Per- 

 romat in Mauritius was also an early worker. A number of years elapsed 

 before Eckart started his experiments in Hawaii, as here also at first a 

 stimulus was wanting. Other workers in this field have been the Littee 

 brothers in Martinique, the Hambledon Mill in Australia, the Diamond 

 Plantation in Demerara, and more recently the Louisiana State Experiment 

 Station at Audubon Park, and the Experiment Station at Tucuman, Argen- 

 tina. A large number of seedlings has also been grown at the Soledad 

 Estate of Mr. E. F. Atkins in Cuba by Mr. R. M. Grey, but the results have 

 not been made public. The last cane-growing district to fall into line is 

 also the doyen of all, namely, India, and here Barber and Venkataraman 17 

 have initiated a series of studies equally valuable from the academic and 

 the utilitarian aspect. 



Methods of obtaining Seedlings. The methods under which seedlings 

 are obtained are : 



*A statement in the "Transactions of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of IndiaV (1838, a, 393, 

 reads as if cane seedlings had even then been experimentally propagated in that country In Ure's " Dictionary 

 of Arts and Manufactures," of date c. 1845, the statement is also made that " in India it grows to seed." 1 have 

 been unable to confirm or refute these statements. 



D 



