Fkbruary, 1912. 



155 



Miscellaneous. 



points connected with the foundations of 

 new colonies.' Its functions in this res- 

 pect were steadily fostered by tbe 

 Hookers, father and son. Tbe history 

 of Kew thus affords one of tbe earliest 

 instances in tbis country of tbe recogni- 

 tion of tbe duty of the state to promote 

 scientific knowledge in the public in- 

 terest. And tbe historic meaning of tbe 

 controversies, which have occasionally 

 brought Kew prominently into public 

 notice, is simply the attempt oi a policy 

 of laissez faire to arrest its work. 



But anything which is rooted in sound 

 principles cannot be checked, because 

 their necessity insists on asserting itself ; 

 and the West Indies again supply the 

 illustration. Obviously their chief asset 

 is solar energy. Our channel islands 

 supply us with early vegetables. In a 

 ruie-oi-tbree sum tbe West Indies stand 

 for tbe channel islands of the North 

 Atlantic shores. Alfred Jones saw this 

 and started a line of steamers to flood 

 us with West Indian fruit. But tbis is 

 anticipating. In tbe 'nineties' their 

 condition was tbe reverse of prosperous. 

 And, it it is a paradox that science was 

 indirectly the cause of the mischief, it 

 happily was able to supply tbe remedy. 



The Napoleonic empire left behind it 

 two permanent legacies, the French code 

 and beetroot sugar. When Napoleon's 

 continental system closed the ports 

 of Europe to Biitish colonial produce, 

 tbe import of tropical sugar was cut off. 

 As sugar ie a necessity of modern food 

 there was tbe strongest impulse to find 

 a new supply. I need not repeat a well- 

 worn story. Tbe Chemist and the culti- 

 vator lavished all their resources on the 

 unpromising beet, and ultimately de- 

 throned the sugar cane. Then came tbe 

 bounties which flooded this country 

 with sugar at scarcely more than cost 

 price, and drove cane sugar out of con- 

 sumption. 



There is a fundamental principle in 

 agriculture: never to trust to a single 

 crop. Ireland trusted to the potato and 

 Ceylon to coffee, and both failed them ; 

 this was from disease. Tbe West Indies 

 trusted to sugar, and in their case the 

 ruin was economic. The balance of solar 

 energy being in its favour, on equal 

 terms the cane should at least bold its 

 own with the beet. But now comes the 

 mistake and its moral. The sugar con- 

 tent of tbe cane was held to be incapable 

 of increase ; the methods of manufac- 

 ture were often archaic and wasteiul. 

 Beetroot sugar was the product of the 

 most refined scientific skill in both direc- 

 tions. It was the fable of tbe hare and 

 the tortoise, 



In the ' nineties ' then tbe West Indies 

 had suuk from prosperity to poverty. 

 I heard it publicly stated at a meeting 

 in the city of Loudon that annexation 

 to tbe United States was the only 

 remedy. On some of ihe islands the 

 peasantry were clamouung for food. 

 And so things might have remained but 

 for Mr. Chamberlain, who has never 

 hesitated to cut himseif adrift irom 

 hide- bound prejudices, and regardless 

 of them, to appiy a practical remedy to 

 an evil. 



Iu 1897, after obtainiug from Parlia- 

 ment some temporary relief he scut out 

 a commission of iuquiry, of which Sir 

 Edward Grey was a member, and to 

 which Sir Daniel Morris, tnen assistant 

 Director of Kew, was attached as Secre- 

 tary. The Imperial Department of 

 Agriculture was established the follow- 

 ing year, and Sir Daniel Mori is left Kew 

 to take up the duties of Commissioner. 

 In a recent paper before tbe Royal Colo- 

 nial Institute (see Nature, January 26) 

 be has given a full, and 1 thiuk extremely 

 modest, account of what he was able to 

 achieve. That paper will speak for itself. 

 My purpose is to show bow success 

 flowed from tbe patient and persistent 

 application of scientific method. 



The first thing was to see if tbe sugar 

 content of the cane could be improved. 

 Like many other plants subjected to 

 long cultivation, it was believed to have 

 lost the power of produciug seeds. Tne 

 Pacific Islands had oeen ransacked with- 

 out much success to find more productive 

 kinds which might have arisen possibly 

 by bud variation. The white TrauspareuC 

 cane, which is regarded as a sLauUard in 

 the West Indies, yields 2£ tons of sugar 

 to the acre. As sugar content vanes, 

 like every thing else, in individual plants, 

 it was suggested from Kew that an im- 

 proved race might be ootained by the 

 process of chemical selection by which 

 the ViJmorins woiked up the beet to a 

 high standard and maintained it at it. 

 Some success was obtained, but it was 

 evident that it would be extremely slow. 

 By a struke of good fortune a more 

 rapid method was discovered. Aoout 

 1888, Mr. Bo veil and Professor Harrison 

 noticed the spontaneous occurrence of 

 seedling sugar-canes in Barbados. It 

 was found that tbe sugar-cane did actu- 

 ally pioduce seed, though in so small a 

 quantity chat it had been overlooked. 

 As this at once opjned tbe door to 

 seminal variation and selection, the 

 attention of the Colonial Office was at 

 once directed by Kew to the importance 

 of the discovery. The work was vigo- 

 rously taken up by Sir Daniel Morris, 

 and from 190b onwards seedlings have 



