Edible Products, 



314 



I October, 1909. 



eastward, and thus allowed the planters 

 to take their measures. If it had struck 

 the whole of the island at the same time, 

 very likely it would have destroyed our 

 sugar cultivation right out, the more so, 

 as at the same time a serious crisis in 

 sugar prices pievailed, which was apt 

 to endanger the existence of many sugar 

 estates even without the aid of the 

 disease. Now it fortunately took ten 

 years before the sereh disease had spread 

 throughout the whole island, and the 

 planters made a happy use of that res- 

 pite to bethink themselves of remedies 

 to combat it. 



While the western part of the land 

 was infested, the middle and eastern 

 parts still were free and could spare a 

 continuous stream of sound cane tops, 

 which were used for replanting the 

 attacked cane fields in the western parts; 

 but as the disease slowly but uninter- 

 ruptedly spread eastward, the available 

 amount of sound tops decreased yearly, 

 while the area, wanting them, increased 

 accordingly, so that everybody could 

 prophesy that this way of combating 

 the dreaded disease was only a palliative 

 and no remedy. In that time the Java 

 planters sought the aid of science, and 

 established three experimental stations 

 in different parts of the island, with 

 the chief object of suggesting means 

 to save their industry from the threaten- 

 ing ruin. The scientists attached to 

 the stations, chiefly botanists of al- 

 ready fixed European renown, started 

 work at once, and besides investigating 

 into the real cause of the disease, looked 

 out for practical ways to stamp it out 

 or to avoid it, A great deal of cane 

 varieties from every cane growing 

 country were brought over to Java, 

 propagated and planted in the different 

 estates, and, in fact, among the 

 hundred and odd of those varieties a 

 few proved in the first years after their 

 introduction to be of great value ; they 

 were immune against sereh and pro- 

 duced yields which were by no means 

 inferior to those obtained with the Black 

 Java or Oheribon cane. At the same 

 time the planters wanted to continue 

 the way of planting every year afresh 

 with sound tops from parts of the land, 

 where the sereh had not yet appeared, as 

 they did not liice to leave the variety 

 which had given them every satisfaction 

 up to now, and feared the new varieties 

 could some day or other degenerate and 

 become in their turn victims of the same 

 or another disease. As we saw before, 

 the sugar growing parts of the land be- 

 came gradually infested, so that it soon 

 became impossible to procure sufficient 

 seed for the estates from the tops of 

 still existing sound cane fields. There- 



fore, the sugar estates selected in the 

 mountains and similar remote spots, 

 where no sugar industry existed, fields 

 where they planted cane for seed only. 

 Sound tops were carefully selected, 

 planted with much care in a moun- 

 tainous region, far from every infection 

 by other cane and raised canes, which 

 were cut six or seven months after plant- 

 ing, and used for seed in the plains for 

 the planting of cane fields. As it soon 

 appeared that ratoons became unfailing- 

 ly infected with sereh and did not yield 

 even moderately good crops, where the 

 plant cane had produced a good one, the 

 planters were compelled to keep off from 

 growing ratoons, and since the last 

 fifteen years no ratoons are kept in Java, 

 and all of the sugar cane is planted every 

 year again. The introduction of the 

 varieties from other countries and the 

 system of nurseries in remote parts to- 

 gether co-operated in expelling the 

 disease, but at what cost ! 



The new varieties gradually fell off in 

 quality and could not be relied upon, 

 which always gave a feeling of uneasi- 

 ness for the future, while the expense of 

 the nurseries and the transport of tops 

 from them were too heavy to be con- 

 tinued. In many cases the expenses for 

 the tops even amounted to one-fifth of 

 the whole cost price of the sugar, and 

 this item became so heavy that it swal- 

 lowed all of the profit, while at the same 

 time the danger remained that also the 

 mountainous parts one day or other 

 would be attacked and excluded from 

 the raising of the seed. In the meantime, 

 however, the scientists had continued 

 their researches and raised cane from 

 seeds; first in a haphazard way, but 

 afterwards on a scientific and systematic 

 footing. At the outset some arrows 

 were cut, spread out on carefully pre- 

 pared soil, and the resulting tiny cane 

 plants were nursed and planted out in 

 the field. Every plant was analysed, 

 weighed, inspected and observed, and the 

 inferior plants steadily removed so as to 

 keep only the selected good ones. This 

 selection was so rigid, that from the 

 thousands and thousands of plants only 

 some two or three came into use. This 

 terrible waste of time and work induced 

 some investigators, especially Messrs. 

 Moquette, Kobus and Bouricious to select 

 canes of varieties which promised much 

 in some direction or other and to cross- 

 fertilize their flowers, so that, not as 

 formerly, fertilization with some un- 

 known pollen was secured, but the ferti- 

 lization was effected with carefully 

 selected pollen of especially chosen 

 fathers. The results were brilliant, and 

 Java came into possession of families of 

 sugarcane which surpass in every point 



