106 TIMEHRI. 
STO ea es MAESTRO ANE FN 
canes grown from richer parents will tend to be richer 
than those raised from poorer parents, 
In addition, this experiment has been frequently re- 
peated in this colony. Bourbon canes grown in Barba- 
dos are well known to contain on an average at least one 
and a half per cent. more sucrose than those raised here. 
On many occasions canes have been imported from 
Barbados and used here for planting. Now, if the con- 
tention of Mr. EDSON and Mr. THISELTON-DYER is 
correét, fields planted with tops from Barbados ought to 
have yielded decidedly richer canes than those planted 
with Demerara tops. Has this ever been the case? I 
can find no record of it; and with men so keenly alive 
to every point in their pursuit which promises advantage 
however small as are our planters, I am certain that 
if richer canes had been obtained the fat would have 
been noticed and the matter followed up. The universal 
opinion appears to be that no better results as regards 
the richness of the cane juice have been obtained from 
Barbados tops than from local ones. 
From the foregoing grounds Mr. JENMAN and myself 
have not considered it worth while expending time, | 
labour and money over attempts to obtain improved 
canes by sele€tion of tops for planting. 
(ce) By raising new varieties by means of the seed 
of the sugar cane. 
Until within the last ten years the idea that the sugar 
cane could produce fertile seeds was, by the great 
majority of planters and botanists, held to be absolutely 
without proof, and attempts to raise canes from seeds 
were considered to be as futile as I hold attempts to ob- 
tain ‘Graft hybrids”’ are. How this scientific and popu. 
