VARIETIES OF THE CANE. 



Moquette in Java, Harrison, Bovell, Jenman, Hart and Lewton-Brain in the 

 British West Indies, the brothers Littee in Martinique, Boname and Perromat 

 in Mauritius, and Eckart in Hawaii; in addition, private enterprise is 

 exemplified by the raising of seedlings at the Diamond Plantation in Demerara, 

 and at the Hambledon Mill in Australia ; it has also been undertaken by many 

 planters in Barbados, in Mauritius, and in Brazil. 



At first, in Java, this discovery was regarded as of academic interest only, 

 since it was believed that the Cheribon cane had reached commercial perfection, 

 and it was not till the appearance of the sereh disease that the propagation of 

 seedlings was undertaken with vigour ; a similar lack of incentive was never 

 present in the British West Indies, and the discovery was followed up by 

 Harrison and his colleagues from the first. 



The factors governing the properties of seedling canes have been studied 

 in great detail by Harrison and Jenman 26 and by Went and Prinsen 

 Geerligs 27 . Briefly it appears from their work that the cane is enor- 

 mously subject to variation and that there is but little tendency towards 

 the inheritance of the properties of either parent; in all cases where 

 successful seedlings have been obtained it has been by growing a very large 

 number of seedlings and eliminating almost all. Harrison has pursued this 

 method up to the extent of raising over 1,000,000 seedlings, the very 

 greater proportion of which were destroyed off hand ; of the remainder only a 

 few survived the first preliminary selection, and eventually these were cut 

 down to very small numbers. In Java, also, very large numbers have been 

 raised and have been rapidly weeded out at an early stage of growth. 



It was observed at an early stage that the Cheribon cane in Java had no 

 fertile pollen whilst the ovaries of the flower were normal ; hence the plan of 

 growing in alternate rows a pollen-bearing variety and the Cheribon cane 

 arose ; most of the Javanese seedlings have been thus obtained. The most 

 prolific workers in Java have been Bouricius who used the Canne Morte, and 

 Kobus who used the Chunnee (an Indian variety), as the male parents. Else- 

 where the seedlings raised have generally been adventitious, the male parent 

 being uncertain. 



In 1904 Lewton-Brain 28 in Barbados and Mitchell 29 in Queensland 

 emasculated cane flowers and fertilized them with pollen from another variety, 

 thus obtaining hybrids of certain parentage ; this method is now being 

 followed up, but the skill required and the small number of hybrids obtained, 

 and there being at present no reason for supposing that these hybrids will 

 develop superior qualities over adventitious seedlings, makes it doubtful if this 

 method is advisable. At the very least it can be said that very valuable canes 

 have resulted from the scheme of selection from a very large number of 

 seedlings, a method which is simplified by the observation that it is only the 

 outstanding canes of merit grown under experiment station conditions that 

 have any chance of success on the estate scale. 



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