EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
almost innumerable. I have again selected, and intend to sow, 
watch, and report ; but as the usual climax of variation is nearly 
reached in the recorded experiment, I do not anticipate much 
further deviation, except in height and period of ripening — charac- 
ters wbich are always very unstable in the pea. There are also 
important botanical and other variations and changes occurring 
in cross-fertilized peas to which it is not my province here to 
allude ; but in conclusion I may, perhaps, in furtherance of the ob- 
jects of this paper, be permitted to inquire whether any liglit can, 
from these observations or other means, be thrown upon the ori- 
gin of the cultivated kinds of peas, especially the " maple " variety, 
and also as to the source whence the violet and other colours 
which appear at intervals on the seeds and in the offspring of cross- 
fertilized purple-flowered peas are derived. 
ly. Disease in the Sugar-cane in Bahia*, translated from a me- 
moir by F. M. Dranert in the ' Zeitschrift fiir Parasiten- 
kunde.' By the Eev. M. J. Berkeley, F.E.H.S. 
The Sugar-cane has for some years been affected, in Brazil, with 
a disease for which the most contradictory causes have been as- 
signed and without leading to the discovery of any remedy. Loud 
complaints have also been made in Cuba on the same subject, and 
in the province of St. Catherine its cultivation has been aban- 
doned in several places. Von Tschudi advised the colonists in 
South Brazil to the same effect, and in truth considered the cli- 
mate adverse ; for, according to observations made from August 
18G7 to July 1868, the mean temperature was 70°'7 Fahr., whereas 
the Sugar-cane requires a mean temperature of 75*^*2 Fahr. It 
could scarcely be expected that so succulent a plant could be sub- 
jected, without injury to its organic activity, to so low a tempera- 
ture as 39°*2 Fahr., which occurred on the 23rd of August, 1868, 
in the province of Blumenau, and which, indeed, is often registered 
in the rainy season. The cultivation of sugar, however, is still 
* Some remarks on a disease in the Sugar-cane in the Malayan peninsula 
were brought before the Scientific Committee, April 20, 1869, of which a precis 
was given at the time. Tiie accomjjanying observations, translated from an ar- 
ticle in Dr. Hallier's Journal, which have already appeared in the ' Gardeners' 
Chronicle,' may be of interest in connexion with the same subject, and have been 
deferred to the present time only for want of room. The diseases^ though pre- 
vailing in such distant countries, seem to be identical. 
