27 



canes. Not merely should this be done systematically on individual 

 estates, but it should be carried on at the Botanical Station. In the 

 latter case, the canes should be systematically analysed in order to se- 

 lect those canes which are richest in sugar. 



In this connexion, I am sorry to learn from Mr. Bovell, in a letter 

 which accompanied the specimens of diseased canes, that nothing has 

 been done with regard to the provision of a larger experimental sta- 

 tion. A committee appears to have been appointed by the Legislative 

 Council to consider the matter and was allowed to lapse without re- 

 porting. 



In conclusion, I must point out, that, though Kew may be able to 

 be of some assistance in technical matters like the present, it cannot 

 supply the cultivator with the energy and intelligent resource, without 

 which no industry in the long run can be successfully prosecuted. 



Extract from Barbados Bulletin, December 12, 1893. 

 After the repeated warnings which our planters have received from 

 the Kew^authorities respecting the prevalent cane diseases and the 

 necessity of being careful in the selection of seed, or cane plants, many 

 of our planters are still pursuing the old and irrational methods of 

 selection that have been condemned by those who speak authoritatively 

 on the subject. While passing through several estates last week, we 

 witnessed the process of collecting and selecting cane sprouts for 

 planting, and on carefully examining their quality, in order to ascertain 

 if sufficient attention had been given in their selection, we found on one 

 estate (managed by one of the oldest, most experienced, wealthiest and 

 respected planters in this island) that a large quantity of plants had 

 been purchased from labourers on the estate who had grown small, 

 stunted, sickly-looking canes on the poor patches of soil around their 

 huts, and it is from these stunted canes the sprouts had been taken. On 

 another estate we saw plants selected for sowing that had the rind 

 fungus on many of them, which the unscientific overseer assured us 

 would be destroyed in the process of soaking in lime-water before plant- 

 ing ; and on a third estate, one of the largest in the island, we saw a 

 great heap of plants, many of which on examination were found to be 

 attacked with the borer. Here, then, were men boasting of their ex- 

 perience as planters, who were en gaged in propagating disease by sowing 

 the very evils against which they profess to be contending A more 

 suicidal policy could not be imagined. And on asking one of these 

 agricultural wise-acres why such poor seed had been selected, and why 

 a nursery of strong, healthy canes had not been established on the 

 estate for the purpose of supplying it with good, vigorous seed plants, he 

 replied that they could not afford to divert sufficient land for the pur- 

 pose, and that it was cheaper to buy sprouts from the labourers than 

 to grow them as we had suggested. Some, indeed many, of ourplanters 

 are annoyed because Mr. Thiselton-Dyer has laid the blame of the 

 prevalent cane-pests at their door ; but if his statement needed any 

 vindication, that the planters are themselves largely responsible for 

 the evils that exist through their neglect of necessary precautions and 

 their carelessness in selecting cane plants, that vindication the plan- 

 ters are themselves supplying by following the condemned customs 

 of the past and recklessly pursuing a course that can only tend to the 

 perpetuation and increase of the evils they profess to be anxious to avert. 



