134 SUGAR 



cuttings, as is usually the case. When reproduced by 

 seed, however, the matter is entirely different. In 

 seventy seedlings of Saretha, all stages were seen between 

 upright and depressed ones, just as we saw to occur in 

 those mentioned above, which were largely the progeny 

 of Cheni. This oblique character of the seedlings appears 

 to be much rarer among the descendants of the thicker 

 tropical canes, and the parents are usually more upright 

 from the start than Indian canes. The degree of erect- 

 ness thus seems to be a matter of some importance from 

 the systematic point of view. 



(2) Leaf-endings. The youngest leaf or two of a cane 

 shoot are vertical, but they soon bend outwards, and the 

 manner and suddenness of this bending is a useful distin- 

 guishing character in the field. Thus, all the members 

 of the Chin group appear to have a sharp, right- 

 angle bend as they pass from the erect position to the 

 broad curve common to all mature cane leaves. By this 

 character you can readily separate Katha, a Chin cane, 

 from Dhaulu of Gurdaspur, to which it is closely allied. 

 In Khari and a number of others the leaves remain 

 straight and erect for a considerable time, giving the 

 whole field the appearance of a mass of bayonets. In 

 Pansahi and many broad-leafed canes the bend is a curve 

 from the start, and it is very quickly realized. Besides 

 these and other main forms there is an infinity of 

 graduations, so that with a little practice it becomes 

 possible to name the cane within a short distance, and in 

 a field of mixed canes to separate the different com- 

 ponents. 



(3) Tillering. The number of canes arising from one 

 stool is a matter of considerable importance agricul- 

 turally, largely determining the closeness of planting and 

 being correlated with the number and thickness of the 

 canes at harvest. Great tillering power, doubtless corre- 

 lated with the thinness of the canes, is one of the most 

 marked characters of North Indian canes as a whole. In 

 the thinnest canes of the Punjab it is not infrequent for 

 as many as fifty shoots to arise from one system of roots. 

 The thicker canes of the tropics, tillering far less, more 

 than make nr> for this by the size and weight of the 



