September 22, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



157 



SCIENCE: 



Published by N. D. C. HODGES, 874 Broadway, New York. 



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COKN CANE.* 



BY F. L. STEWART, MITERYSVILLE. PA. 



Much attention was given to the physiological affinities 

 of maize to discover, if possible, whether in the case of 

 any other of the solid-stemmed grasses with which it nat- 

 urally ranks, a similar correlation exists between seed de- 

 velopment and the accumulation of reserve materials in 

 the culm, with cane sugar as the principal ultimate 

 product. 



In this connection, it became a point of especial inter- 

 est to determine what the deportment of sugar cane and 

 sorghum would be under like conditions, and accordingly 

 the investigation was extended to them, along the same 

 lines. 



It was soon found that a comparatively new field had 

 been entered upon and that no progress could be made 

 without constant appeal to the microscope and approved 

 methods of chemical analysis for the correct determina- 

 tion of many important questions requiring solution. 

 Thus, some safeguard vras established to prevent false 

 analogies from being followed and false conclusions 

 reached, such as have marked and marred the whole 

 rationale of treatment, both of the beet and of sorghiim, in 

 the attempt to make sugar manufacture from them prac- 

 ticable in this country. 



It was found to be the fact, uniformly, that from the 

 time the sugar first shows itself in the cell sap, during 

 the early growth of maize, until the grain begins to 

 harden, it steadily increases. But what is most remark- 

 able is that it then suddenly diminishes and disappears, 

 leaving behind it scarce a trace of its former presence. 

 Other allied plants, such as sorghum, up to a certain 

 period of growth, manifest the same characteristics, but 

 beyond that the resemblance ends. Sorghum does not 

 reach its full saccharine strength until its seed is dead 

 ripe. Maize, on the contrary, if its grain be allowed to 

 pass into that condition, parts with its sugar utterly, but 

 if the offered alternative be taken and the ear be removed 

 promptly at the critical period, all the vital energies of 

 the j)lant become at once directed to the special work of 

 storing up highly organized food materials in the cells of 

 the stalk. Instead of dying, off hand, as it does in the 

 other case, the plant lives on, and without a break the 

 constructive forces go on converting the simpler into 

 the more complex reserve materials. The stalk is their 

 storehouse, and, under the new conditions imposed, that 

 part of the plant passes through a supplementary stage of 



♦Continued from Science, Sept. 15. 



development. Its princij^al function then is to accumu- 

 late sugar. 



It would be out of place, in a brief sketch, to particu- 

 larize the changes then occurring, further than to say 

 that the other carbohydrates, generally, give place to 

 sugar. There is also a sensible increase of the protein 

 substances keeping pace with the increase of the sugar. 



It is then a process ot juice ripening, borrowing the term 

 from an analogous jjrocess which is carried on in the ma- 

 turing joints of the sugar cane. This led to a closer com- 

 parison of the latter with Indian corn when- in this 

 anomalous condition. Living ribbon cane from Louisiana, 

 received here fully matured and in perfectly good condi- 

 tion, and young joints at hand growing under glass, fur- 

 nished ready means of comparing them closely under all 

 ordinary conditions of growth and development. It is 

 very evident that the two species have then several char- 

 acteristics in common which are not evident when the 

 cane is compared with corn in what we call its natural 

 condition. The following have especial significance, as 

 they approach maturity. 



1. In both plants the solid stalk or culm has then be- 

 come simply a reservoir of materials available for j)lant 

 food, and in the case of the sugar cane, made use of when 

 active growth by the joints begins. 



2. In both, the develoi^ment of the organized products 

 is jjrogressive, i. e., from the more simple to the more 

 complex of the series, which take the soluble form and are 

 available for transmission to any points where new organ- 

 ized structure is to be built up. 



3. By reason of the constant accumulation of these sol- 

 uble materials, chiefly, the weight of the plant and the 

 density of the juice increase. 



4. The general plan of structure and physiological 

 properties of the stem in both are very much alike, al- 

 though there are very striking differences, and they be- 

 come more alike, both in structure and function, as this 

 period advances, the separate joints of the one and the 

 whole stalk of the other attaining their full size before 

 the highest elaboration of their juices takes place. 



5. It is a well-attested fact that ordinarily no variety of 

 sugar cane is known to jserfect its seed or, to use the lan- 

 guage of May, "to produce anything like seed, either in 

 India, China, the Straits of Malacca, Egypt or the South 

 Sea Islands." By a curious analogy maize, in this sec- 

 ondary stage of development, is likewise incapable of 

 producing seed, having lost, apparently, its capacity in 

 that direction. 



There are other points of resemblance which it would 

 be interesting to note, but that to which the most im- 

 portance attaches in this connection is the highly sac- 

 charine condition of the juice in both, which ranks them 

 together more closely than their striking natural relation- 

 ship otherwise would seem to justify. 



The reader is referred to the table in which the average 

 sugar percentage of both is given as based upon the most 

 recent and reliable analysis. It will be seen, I think, 

 that the term corn cane has not unreasonably been applied 

 to a plant which in a summer's growth can thus be made 

 to develop qualities which give it a rank second only to 

 the tropical cane. 



Also, it will be observed that the saccharine qualities 

 of the juice, only, have been compared in the table. 



But, as between the other sugar- j)roducing plants 

 named and Indian corn there can be no further compari- 

 son. Maize is a cereal of the, highest value, and it does 

 not lose that character in this case. The high condition 

 of sugai- develojyment which U can now he made to attain is not 

 attended by the sacrifice of the grain, and against this grain 

 product neither the sugar cane nor the beet can show any 

 comjjensating value whatever. 



This fact cannot be discounted by the assumed inferi- 



