Report of Society's Meetings. 199 



remarks in a letter of Mr. Thiselton-Dyer read at a late 

 meeting of the Court of Policy : — 



Georgetown, Demerara, British Guiana, 



5th March, 1896, 



Sir, — The Agricultural Committee of the Royal Agricultural and 

 Commerical Society of British Guiana have had under consideration 

 the letter from Mr. Thiselton-Dyer to Mr. W. T. Wingfield, Colonial 

 Office, dated i6th December, 1895, containing his observations on the 

 report of the Commission for enquiring into "the best method of 

 encouraging Banana and Fruit growing," and also the wider question of 

 Minor Industries in the Colony. 



As reference has been made to this Society, the Committee think 

 that it is not advisable that Mr. Thiselton-Dyer's letter should be 

 allowed to pass without comment, as some of the statements contained 

 in it might, if not protested against, mislead. 



In paragraph 3 of his letter, Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, commenting on the 

 comparative values of Beetroot and Sugar cane as plants cultivated for 

 the extraction of sugar, states that while the saccharine richness of beet 

 has been enormously increased within recent years, that of the cane has 

 remained almost stationary, and he cannot doubt that " the saccharine 

 contents of the sugar cane might be immensely increased." Mr. Thisel- 

 ton-Dyer appears to have overlooked the very important fafl that while 

 the cultivation of the beet for sugar extra6lion is a matter of only about 

 one hundred years, that of the cane has existed from extreme antiquity, 

 but has only in recent years received the attention of chemists and 

 botanists. 



The experience of later years tends to show that the improvement of 

 the saccharine richness of the beet has almost reached its limit, and that it 

 is not likely that there will be anything like the same improvement in the 

 future that there has been in the past. 



The planters of British Guiana have not been without interest, and 

 very great interest, in this matter, although they have not had the in- 

 centive of a possibility of profiting by a system of bounties that are so 

 levied that every increase of saccharine richness in the plant is rewarded 

 by a Government gift, for the continental Governments levied taxes on 

 the beets and gave drawbacks on the sugar exported, so that every atom 

 of sugar extracted in excess of what had been considered possible when 

 the tax was imposed, received from the Government a tax which h^d 

 never been paid by the manufacturer. 



