ON CHEMICAL YIELDING PLANTS 



maturity, was carried subsequently to the Hawai- 

 ian Islands, and there propagated in the usual way, 

 so that in due course sufficient plants were grown 

 from it to be tested as to their qualities of growth 

 and sugar production. And it was soon discovered 

 that the progeny of this seedling constituted vir- 

 tually a new race of sugar-cane; one that would 

 grow on land so poor that it had been allowed to 

 remain fallow. 



The new variety, indeed, would produce more 

 sugar on even the poorest land which had been 

 abandoned, than the ordinary variety produces on 

 the best land. 



Being taught by this experience, the growers of 

 sugar-cane paid heed to the seedlings in fields 

 where they appeared, and subsequently raised 

 from seed, and distributed in all countries, new 

 varieties of sugar-cane that ha^e probably in- 

 creased the sugar production of the world by 

 millions of tons each year,- 



One could not ask a better object lesson in the 

 possibility of rejuvenating a static race of plants 

 through the growing of seedlings. 



I first made experiments with seedling sugar- 

 cane in my own gardens, and when reports of these 

 were made, I received letters from the various 

 sugar-growing regions of the world, asking for 

 further information, and now there are several 



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