PLANTS WHICH YIELD USEFUL 

 CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES 



OBSERVATIONS ON^ SUGAR-CANE HOPS AND 

 SUGAR-BEETS 



AN English physician residing in Trinidad 

 made a casual observation that proved 

 enormously important to the growers of 

 sugar-cane. 



The physician observed that in the cane fields 

 there were little grass-like plants coming up here 

 and there. The planters whom he asked about it 

 said that it was "grass", and let the matter go at 

 that. But the physician had a suspicion that each 

 blade of grass was really the shoot of a seedling 

 sugar-cane plant. 



As it chanced both the planters and the 

 physician were right. The little shoots were young 

 sugar-cane plants; but of course sugar-cane is itself 

 a giant grass, so there was no mistake. 



But the planters had not a suspicion as to what 

 kind of grass the shoots were; so when the physi- 

 cian took some of them up and cultivated them, 



[VOLUME VIII CHAPTER V] 



