JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
I December 2", 1883. 
’ 584 
did not send their fruit to market packed higgledy-piggledy, and he 
had sent fruit to market so carefully packed that the dealer had written 
saying it was not necessary to take such trouble in packing it, but they 
might depend upon it it was. The first year he got a crop of 13 cwt., 
the second year he doubled it, last year he got 4 tons, and this year 
between 4 and 5 tons. As to the market being glutted, it was not by 
high class produce but by inferior fruits. If they planted a first-class 
Plum, Pear, or Apple, and took pains with it, they would never have a 
glut. This year he had made something like £50 for his acre of trees, 
which followed on rather more than £40 last year. He hoped he should 
be able to tell them on some future occasion he got £120 an acre, which 
Mr. Bunyard said they ought to get. In reply to questions, Mr. Camp¬ 
bell said his Plums were entirely Victorias, and there had been com¬ 
paratively few deaths of his trees. He made one great mistake through 
ignorance of his land, by not draining it, and one day he found it water¬ 
logged from the water off the hill above, but now it was drained his 
trees were going on all right. He fixed on Victorias simply because they 
were the most marketable. They were eating and preserving Plums, 
though in some markets he agreed they would not sell. In Evesham 
they would prefer the prolific sort. He obtained 3s. 9d. for 24 lbs. of 
his own Plums in Leominster market. He sent the whole of it away, 
having no refuse. His fruit was pretty much the same quality and 
size. One learnt a great deal by experience, and it was his intention 
next year to take all the bad fruit from every tree—he had some 5000 
or 6000 trees—and thus throw all the strength of the tree into the 
remainder of the fruit, and when market time came he should abso¬ 
lutely have not a single fruit to throw away. 
- Following on the same subject Sir W. Wedderburn said they 
had two enemies to deal with ; one was the foreign competitor, and the 
other was the home distributor. Therefore they must see what they 
could do themselves; they must not lie down in a feeble way and allow 
themselves to be ridden over. Co-operation was the best means of 
coping with these two enemies, and he therefore proposed, “ That it is 
desirable to form a local association to aid the home grower of orchard 
and garden produce in competing with the foreign producer both in the 
home and the foreign markets ; and that the co-operation of those 
interested in horticulture be invited in order that practical and detailed 
information may be supplied to local producers as to the best and most 
profitable methods of raising and selling choice varieties of fruit, 
vegetables, and flowers, and getting them to market.” The foreigner 
chiefly got the better of the home producer by raising early things and 
very choice varieties. Still we saw quantities of produce brought from 
the Channel Islands and France which might be produced here, and he 
believed the English article would fetch a price 20 per cent, higher than 
that of the foreigners. A good deal had been said against the middle¬ 
man, but they must remember that if he was given a great deal of 
ungraded, miscellaneous, and untrustworthy produce, which he had to 
grade, find a market for, and take the risk of loss, he must be expected 
to take the profit. If information as to markets were disseminated, 
they might, by working together, take over all those profits taken by 
middlemen. The general objects of such an association would be by 
public meetings and conferences to bring together practical men, and 
get good opinions and information. Detailed and practical information 
with regard to special subjects might be disseminated by means of 
leaflets, and an experienced horticulturist might be engaged to go about 
from one district to another communicating the methods and practices 
which had been found most successful to the fruit growers.” 
SEEDLINGS OF SUGAR CANE AT BARBADOS. 
The Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum, A.) is one of the most 
valuable economic plants we possess. It has been cultivated for so long 
a period that the primitive habitat of the species, according to De Can¬ 
dolle, is unknown—(‘•Origin of Cultivated Plants,” 1884, p. 755). 
Bentham in “ Flora of Hong Kong,” p. 420, states that “ We have no 
authentic record of any really wild station of the common Sugar Cane.” 
Further than this, in common with many plants that have been for a 
long time under cultivation and reproduced solely by means of buds and 
suckers, the Sugar Cane so rarely produces mature fruits that no one, as 
far as we are aware, has ever seen them. Certainly in the rich Her¬ 
barium at Kew there are no seed-bearing specimens. In botanical 
works the subject is often referred to, but apparently only to restate the 
fact that botanists like McFadyen in the West Indies and Roxburgh in 
India “have never seen the seeds of the Sugar Cane.”—(“Hooker’s 
Botanical Miscellany,” 1830, vol. i., p. 95, tab. 26). 
Schacht is one of the few persons who has given a good analysis of 
the flower of the Sugar Cane including the pistil; he also had not seen 
the ripe seed. 
In discussing the problem how far the saccharine qualities of the 
Sugar Cane could be improved on the same lines as those so successfully 
adopted with regard to the Beet, it was lately pointed out in a letter 
addressed to the Colonial Office that, owing to the power of producing 
fertile seeds having apparently been lost by the Sugar Cane, it was im¬ 
practicable to deal with it by means of cross fertilisation, or by the 
ordinary course of seminal selection. It was further pointed out that 
new and improved varieties amongst Sugar Canes were to be looked for 
amongst bud variations, and planters were advised to mark any canes, 
that showed a departure from the type and cultivate them separately 
for experimental purposes, with a view to test their yield in sugar. 
Attention having thus been directed to the subject by official notices 
published in sugar-producing colonies, several communications have 
been received at Kew from persons who believed that they were able 
to afford some information on the point whether the Sugar Cane pro¬ 
duces seed or not. 
First, as regards the actual seeds of the Sugar Cane. A corre¬ 
spondent at Fiji, in forwarding a small packet to Kew in April last, 
stated, “ Some time ago there was published in the Government Gazette 
of this colony an extract from a letter from you in reference to Sugar 
Cane seed. I have been eighteen years in sugar-producing countries, 
and have never observed Sugar Cane seed until within the last month, 
when one of my sons brought me a head fully ripened from a garden in 
my neighbourhood. Some time afterwards I went to see the sort of cane- 
from which the seed had been gathered, but the plant was dug upand.I 
could only learn that it was a purplish cane.” The seed sent by thia 
correspondent proved not to be the seed of a Saccharum at all ; it wa3 
the seed of a Sorghum, and probably of S. vu'gare, the common Millet or 
Guinea Corn. 
Recently, however, a statement has reached Kew, from a trustworthy 
source, that seedling Sugar Canes had been found at Barbados, and that 
plants were in course of being raised at the botanical station in that 
island, under the care of Professor Harrison and Mr. Bovell. Mr. J. B. 
Harrison is Island professor of chemistry and agricultural science.at 
Barbados, and in conjunction with Mr. T. R. Bovell, who is superin¬ 
tendent of Dodd’s Reformatory, he has been engaged for the last three- 
years in cultural and chemical experiments with various kinds of Sugar 
Canes. The results of these experiments have been published officially 
by the Government of Barbados, and afford data of a valuable character 
as regards the effects of manurial constituents applied to Sugar Canes, as 
also the relative merits of new and old varieties of canes now under cul¬ 
tivation in the West Indies. 
The statement sent by Professor Harrison appears to prove, in a per¬ 
fectly natural and circumstantial manner, that a few mature seeds may 
occasionally be produced by the Sugar Cane under certain circumstances. 
It is stated by Rumphius that the Sugar Cane “ never produces flowers oir 
fruit unless it has remained several years in a stony place.” He does 
not, however, say whether he ever saw the fruit, nor does he cite any 
proof of the fact in the shape of seedlings, self-sown or otherwise. The 
canes that would be likely to produce fruit would be those varieties, 
nearest to the original wild cane, and probably on that account they 
would be less rich in sugar than the canes improved by a long course of 
cultivation. Without expressing a decided opinion on the subject, and 
in the absence of the specimens themselves, the information supplied by 
Prof. Harrison is, so far, the most tangible of any yet received to show 
that the cultivated Sugar Cane may occasionally produce mature fruits. 
“ On certain of the higher districts of the island from time to time 
growths of Sugar Cane resembling fine grass have been noticed, but in 
most cases no attempts have been made to cultivate them. Mr. Parris, 
some years ago succeeded in raising a few canes from the cane arrow or 
flowering shoot. Mr. Clarke did the same with the arrow of the purple 
transparent cane, but did not succeed in getting the seedlings to flourish,, 
and my wife's father many years ago succeeded in getting the arrows to 
produce young canes, but not in cultivating them. Knowing these 
cases, Mr. Bovell and myself considered that a favourable opportunity 
of examining into this question offered itself during the cultivation of 
the varieties of canes which we have here. These canes were planted in 
rows of four broad by 25 feet deep, and so as to have two sets of each, 
kind, in all 36 plots of 18 varieties, p'anted side by side. The plots were 
noticeable this year for the number of arrows sent up by some of the; 
varieties. We gave strict orders to the labourers employed in weeding 
and watching the adjacent land to report to us any grasses springing 
up upon them in any way differing from the usual weeds. Towards the 
e:;d of January they reported to us that a few tufts of grass different.to« 
the usual kinds were making their appearance. We found these to be 
growing in a rather narrow belt of the field on one side of the plots and 
in a little below it, following the direction of the prevailing wind. They 
were found not only on the surface of the field, but also on the bottom 
of a drain which had been dug in the field to a depth of 18 inches. Some 
eighty or ninety plants sprang up at intervals afterwards. We found a 
good deal of difficulty in keeping them alive, as the sun quickly 
shrivelled them up ; it was necessary to protect them in many cases 
from the direct rays of the sun and to keep them constantly watered. In 
this way we succeeded in saving some sixty-four or sixty-five plants. Of 
these we carefully examined three or four so as to ascertain as far as we 
could the absence of any particles of old cane in them. Their mode of 
growth was quite different to that of canes growing from the eyes of 
canes. Sixty plants were successfully transplanted, and are being culti¬ 
vated. At present they are not far enough advanced in. their growth to 
