SUGAR 135 



individual canes, and perhaps no figures or illustrations 

 will bring home the innate differences between these two 

 series of canes better than the following : Calculations 

 made at Samalkota on whole fields gave four canes to 

 each stool of Red Mauritius and only two and a half to 

 Striped Mauritius, 'but the canes in this part of India are 

 dften of an enormous size. One field of vertical canes 

 produced a specimen nearly 30 ft. in length. And yet, 

 compared with the out-turn of the North Indian canes 

 referred to, which possess great tillering powers, the 

 average crop from the tropical canes in the neighboiir- 

 hood of Samalkota is about four times as large. 



Three characters dealing with habit have been men- 

 tioned which may be used in classification. There are a 

 great many others which it is not necessary to discuss in 

 this place. 



COLOUR. Former systems of classification of the sugar- 

 cane have laid considerable stress upon colour of the 

 stem as a character, sometimes dividing the varieties into 

 main groups according as they were green or yellow, 

 red, striped, ashy, etc. But, although colour is of 

 undoubted importance and fairly characteristic, there are 

 insuperable objections to using it as the basis of a main 

 classification. The frequent appearance of colour sports, 

 especially in striped canes, is against it. I have figured 

 a striped cane stool with red, green, and striped canes 

 springing together from it. Then change of colour on 

 transference of a cane from one place to another is not 

 at all uncommon. Some of the local Coimbatore canes, 

 recently transferred to Pusa, in Bihar, have developed a 

 marked claret in place of the normal greenish-yellow. 

 These facts account for numerous cases of canes being 

 met with which are entirely similar to one another except 

 in regard to their colour. 



But, in spite of this, the colour of the cane and of the 

 different regions of the joint is of great taxonomic value, 

 and should always be carefully noted. This is also true 

 of blushing on exposure; not only do varieties differ in 

 the degree to which they may be tinged by sun or wind 

 or frost, but the actual colours vary from faint pink or 

 bright cerise to dark, dull green, or purple. And there 



