Description

A few days ago Kobus forwarded to Thiselton-Dyer the results of a second series of analysis regarding sugar cane selection. As Thiselton-Dyer will have seen, all the thicker varieties, except White Manilla, show an amelioration of the available sugar percentage. With Chunnee, a very thin Indian variety that sprouts all the year round, selection cannot be done in this way. He draws two small figures to demonstrate how their cane varieties sprout versus how their Chunnee and other thin Indian varieties sprout. In their next pamphlet Thiselton-Dyer will find some remarkable results of the crossing of the two cane-varieties, which produced seedlings of a very high saccharose [sucrose] content with immunity to disease. He rejected all seedlings that gave less than four and a half tons of sugar per acre and with the rest that produced from 0.72 to 1.22 kg of sugar per plant, he continued his experiments. These were the seedlings of 1897 from whose descendents he was able to plant more than an acre. This year he continued his crossing experiments and got 2000 seedlings, which are all doing very well. One is remarkable for the leaves that are white, green and red striped. Since Nov 1898 he has [not?] received the BULLETIN OF MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION issued by RBG Kew. He would be glad to receive this and have the experimental station placed again on the mailing list. Page 1 of 2.