44 THE FLORIST AND 
a paper on the subject by the distinguished French horticulturist, M. Louis 
Vilmorin. 
" An incorrect account of the Holcus saccharatus which I presented to 
the Central Society of Agriculture, at its sitting of the 18th of January, 
having appeared in the Moniteur Universel of the 20th of January, 1854, 
and having thus prematurely drawn attention to this plant, attributing to it, 
by an error of figures, qualities which, if they had been real, would easily 
have justified the rapidity with which the article was copied into many of 
the journals, in order to prevent the further propagation of these false 
notions, I am now obliged to return to the notice of this plant, to which I 
should not otherwise have reverted till I had more completely studied it. - 
" The plant in question, which I presented to the Agricultural Society in 
the name of one of its correspondents, M. Rantonnet, of Hyeres, is called 
ILolcus saccharatus. It has long been known, and was even cultivated in 
Italy, in the beginning of the present century ; but whether owing to the 
methods of extraction known at that time being not sufficiently good to be 
used with advantage, or that the variety was not so rich in saccharine pro- 
ducts as that which we now possess, its cultivation was abandoned. 
" Four years ago, M. de Montigny, the French Consul at Shanghae, sent 
to the Geographical Society a collection of seeds, among which were some 
labelled ' Sugar-Cane of the North of China.' The seeds were liberally dis- 
tributed by the Greographical Society, and this year I had in cultivation a 
small lot which I had received from one of my correspondents in Champagne, 
M. Ponsard, of Omey. The plant is the same, botantically, as the Holcus 
saccharatus formerly cultivated by L. Arduino, and the letter of M. Ean- 
tonnet, by which I was entrusted to present it in his name to the Agricultural 
Society, has enabled me to trace the source of this new introduction to the 
collection of seeds forwarded by M. de Montigny. The way in which the 
plants were obtained being thus regularly established, I may now state the 
nature of the carefully conducted experiments to which they were sub- 
jected. 
" One stem, weighing 6,944 grains, gave on the first trial, made October 
13th, 231J grains of limpid juice, with no other flavor than that of sugar 
and water. The juice obtained from the whole stem yielded 10.8 per cent. 
of its weight of sugar. 
" Another trial, made with the saccharometer, Nov. 28th, gave results 
varying from 14.6 to 13.8 per cent of sugar ; I have ascertained that the 
proportion of sugar decreases in the successive internodes or joints, from the 
base upwards, those at the base and middle being the most sugary. 
