108 TIMEHRI. 
VILLA FRANCA, in April, 1869, wrote: “ The floral parts 
of canes with some, although rare, polliniferous flowers 
and feminine organs’ concurred to produce species or 
new varieties,” an exa&t statement of what we now know. 
When in 1888, Mr. BOVELL and myself attacked this 
subject, it was not with the obje& of proving that the 
sugar cane could produce seed, as we had knowledge of 
previous successful experiments in the matter, but to 
find if from the seed of the sugar cane it was possible to 
obtain in considerable quantity seedlings of new varieties, 
some of which might possibly possess more desirable 
properties than do the present staple kinds. This objeét 
has been steadily kept in view ever since, and has been 
pursued in Barbados, in British Guiana, in Martinique, in 
Mauritius, to some extent in Java, and more recently in 
Trinidad, in Singapore and in Queensland. Progressin 
the work has been necessarily slow, and while, perhaps, 
caution has been the most marked feature of the work in 
this colony, still looking to the fate of the famed Burk 
cane, a seedling which was to do wonders, in Barbados, 
I cannot think our caution misplaced. This investiga- 
tion has only been pursued on scientific lines since 1889, 
and I think that the fa€ts that in this colony, in Java, 
and in Queensland, canes have been raised from seed 
having considerably higher sugar contents than the staple 
varieties shew, are most encouraging and should lead to 
increased aétivity in pursuing this line of research, Suc- 
cess in this appears to me to be the only likely opening 
for materially reducing the cost of sugar produ€tion in this 
colony where planters have already so fully availed them- 
selves of the resources of mechanical and chemical science. 
In Barbados, where this line of research was originated, 
ray — 
