126 SUGAR 



Raising cane seedlings is not in itself a matter of much 

 difficulty. But, in spite of many attempts in the past, 

 this has never been accomplished in India. The reason 

 for this non-success is not far to seek. It has been 

 unfortunate that almost all the experiments have been 

 tried in North India. Flowering of the sugar-cane is 

 comparatively rare in North India; indeed, it is so un- 

 common in certain tracts that, when it occurs, it arrests 

 the attention of the cultivators, and they are said to view 

 it as a dire portent. We are informed that instances have 

 occurred where the ryots have left their villages on the 

 appearance of flowers on the cane plants, just as they do 

 when there is a scourge of small-pox, plague, or cholera. 

 Every local superstition in agriculture is worthy of careful 

 sifting, for there is generally a kernel of truth and 

 experience in the most extravagant clothing of imagina- 

 tion. While flowering in the sugar-cane is in many cases 

 undoubtedly a varietal character, it seems to me that it 

 is also largely influenced by climate and surroundings, 

 and there is some reason to assume that it occurs in 

 North India chiefly in dry years. In a country where 

 every year passes with a series o>f dry months during 

 which not a drop of rain falls, the partial failure of the 

 normal rains is a matter of very serious moment, some- 

 times spelling disaster. A couple of years ago there was 

 quite a phenomenal flowering of the sugar-cane over the 

 eastern districts of the United Provinces, and it is an 

 interesting circumstance Jhat, but for unexpected rains 

 in November after a prolonged drought, the situation 

 would have been very serious throughout the sugar-cane 

 tract. But even when the canes flower in North India 

 it transpires that the stamens do not open, and even if 

 they did the pollen inside is ill-formed and immature. 

 The climate of the Gangetic plain is too cold apparently 

 for the full formation of the parts of the flower, hence 

 the ovules cannot be fertilized and seed cannot be formed. 



In South India the frequency of flowering varies a good 

 deal in different places, but around Coimbatore (a very 

 dry locality) it is a constant feature of the cane fields. 

 A short examination of the cane arrows or tassels in this 

 locality showed that the anthers of many kinds were open, 



