86 
W. G. Freeman. 
CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS IN ECONOMIC BOTANY. 
(Continued from Vol. IV., page 114.) 
By William G. Freeman. 
Seminal Selection of Sugar Canes. 
In the previous articles we have devoted some attention to bud- 
variations or sports and chemical selection of the sugar-cane and 
indicated broadly the results of the efforts made to produce races of 
canes of higher sucrose yield by taking advantage of variations, in 
the one case correlated with differences in external characteristics 
of the plants and in other to be recognized only as the result of 
chemical analysis of their juice. We now turn to the third method 
which is employed in practice, namely, seminal selection. 
The prosecution of work along this line possesses especial 
interest in the case of the sugar-cane owing to the fact that it was 
for long generally supposed that the sugar-cane did not produce 
seed. Thus Darwin in his “Variation of Animals and Plants under 
Domestication,” remarks that the sugar-cane “ which grows 
vigorously and produces a large supply of succulent stems, never, 
according to various observers bears seed in the West Indies, Malaga, 
India, Cochin China, or the Malay Peninsula.” This view was 
held until as recently as 1887 in which year Soltwedel in Java 
proved that the plant did at times produce fertile seed. In the 
following year Harrison and Bovell in Barbados reported the 
discovery of sugar-cane seedlings found growing spontaneously in 
the fields, an observation which they confirmed in the following year 
by actually raising young plants from seeds. There are some 
grounds for supposing that sugar-cane seedlings were raised in 
Barbados about 1860 but it was not until 1887-8 that the inde¬ 
pendent discoveries in Java and Barbados definitely established the 
fact that the sugar-cane does at times bear fertile seed. The 
practical value of the discovery was at once recognized and an 
enormous amount of care and labour has been and is being devoted 
in many parts of the world to the raising of improved races of 
seedling canes. Progress has been slow owing to (1) the flowers of 
the plant being so small that controlled hybridization is very 
difficult, and (2) the long period which intervenes between the first 
raising of a seedling and the pronouncement of the verdict as to 
whether the resultant plant is good or not. 
To deal with the latter difficulties first, let us summarize the 
