243 
Office for the information of sugar-producing persa it was suggested 
that the attention of botanists and su in such colonies 
directed to i 
e and that ca 
carefully cultivated with the view of testing their value. 
“3 circulation of these and other suggestions from Kew has 
attention in such widely remote coloni Fiji, Queensland, and 
Mauritius, as well as in the West India pens and British Guiana, 
* 4, At Barbados, 2 series of very interesting investigations has been 
carried on for the last four years at the botanical station of the colony, 
under the direction of Professor Harrison and Mr. Bovell. These 
investigations, supported by the intelligent action of the loeal govern- 
ment, were, in the first instance, confined to trials of various canes 
introduced to the West Indies by the botanical establishments of 
maica, Trinidad, and British Guiana, and to the yield of these as 
compared with the yield of canes already known in the island. The 
ex ents were also directed to test in an exh ve manner the 
relative value of various manures, and to determine und con- 
ditions such manures were found to yield the best results. 
ummary of the conclusions arrived at in these investigations 
has been regularly published by order of the House of 
Barbados, and it is needless to refer to them here in detail. 
* 6, These gione iir however, possess a special interest, because 
in connexion with t a fact has been observed which it is hoped 
will have an etes pim: upon the ultimate improvement of 
the sugar cane. It has been shown with some probability by . 
Messrs. Harrison and Bovell, that under certain circumstances is 
possible to raise sugar cane "from seed, an occurrence, owing to 
extreme rareness, about which there has been so much doubt that it 
has been thought impossible. 
« 7, The first announcement respecting the EY of sugar 
canes a been raised from seed at the Barbados Botanical 
Station was made in the Kew Bulletin for December last. Since 
that time further information has been received which appears to 
the of producing mature seed. From a botanical point of view 
this is erage eB "recap ^s uire more th assing notice. 
From the «P sep it is a ich i 
established em intelligently followol wg is ble of effecting as 
much improvement in sugar cane in its i yid in sugar as 
been effected in the beet. For the first time it h own that 
it may be p to pursue such a system of selection by seminal 
reproduction in Pape case aed the sugar cane as to greatly increase its 
value as an in lan 
* 8, The economic bearing of the discovery of seedling sugar canes 
at Barados ab however, ipi v very much upon the means 
to utilize it to the best a es i 
canes Mus established by them. It is hoped that the government 
of Barbados, to whom great credit is duc for the results already 
A 4 
