SUGARCANE VARIETY P.O.J. 2878 IN PUERTO RICO 31 
out yielded B.H. 10(12) by over 10 tons of cane per acre. In the 
third field B.H. 10(12) gave the somewhat higher production. The 
average production of 13 fields of P.O.J. 2878, totaling 110.1 acres of 
gran cultura and distributed over eight different farms, was 62.1 
tons of cane per acre. This production compared well with that of 
11 fields, totaling 30.4 acres, of F.O.J. 2725, which averaged 62.8 tons 
of cane per acre, and with that of 12 fields of B.H. 10(12), totaling 
174 acres, which averaged 62.8 tons per acre. 
P.O.J. 2725, as these data show, also gave good tonnage in this 
district in 1931, but the purity was low. On several occasions cars 
of the cane had to be unloaded and the canes sorted out, the rotten or 
immature canes being discarded, to secure satisfactory sugar yields. 
Figure 6.— Gran-oultura sugarcane varieties P.O.J. 2878 on the left and B.H. 10(12) on the right, 15 months 
old, at Central Eureka, in the San German Valley. Photographed Decemher 10, 1930. 
This trouble was not experienced with P.O.J. 2878. Even assuming 
an equal production for the two varieties, P.O.J. 2878 had several 
advantages over P.O.J. 2725 which gave it the preference. On 
account of its erect habit of growth, w T hich is general in the area under 
discussion, very little of the cane rots even in gran cultura where 
tonnage is heavy. P.O.J. 2725 is reclining in growth habit, and much 
of the cane rots from contact with the ground. P.O.J. 2878 can be 
easily harvested because in addition to erect growth it sheds its leaves 
freely and the hairy leaf sheaths are comparatively unobjectionable. 
The canes of P.O.J. 2725, on the contrary, tangle when they lodge and 
the hairy leaf sheaths are made objectionable by the greater number 
of clinging leaves near the tops. B.H. 10(12) gave a slightly higher 
tonnage than did P.O.J. 2878 in the general average of the 1931 crop, 
due largely to a difference in soils. The very best fields — the more 
fertile alluvial soils — had been reserved for B.H. 10(12), whereas 
P.O.J. 2878 was grown on more compact clay loam soils on which 
formerly only Uba cane was thought could be grown. This fortunate 
