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Page. Editorial 3 Citrus Fruits in the Philippines 5 By-products of Sugar Manufacture 29 Coffee in the Philippines 39 Cane-juice Clarification 47 Book Review: "La Fabricaci?n de Azucar Blanco en los Ingenios" 56 Current Notes: First Quarter--Shield Budding the Mango; Experiments in Shield Budding; Improvement of Tropical Fruits in the Philippines; Petioled vs. nonpetioled Budwood; New Sugar Industry; World's Sugar Supply; Progress in Sugar Manufacture 57
TEXT FIGURE.
Fig. 1 Seedling of C. histrix DC 18
EDITORIAL.
THE SUGAR INDUSTRY.
It is supposed that the sugar cane was originally found in India, probably in the region of the Ganges. There is no sugar cane known anywhere to-day in the wild state although there are several species of mammoth grasses closely akin to this plant.
During the reign of Napoleon in France trade in the sugars from British and other foreign possessions was destroyed by the war with England but this decline in the cane-sugar trade served only as an impetus to the new beet-sugar industry then being started. In the meantime there was such a dearth of sugar and such a fabulous rise in prices, that attempts were made to secure sugar from various plants and fruits growing in France, such as beets, sorghum, maize, grapes, apples, pears, figs, etc.
At that time the manufacture of a kind of sugar from grapes became quite important so that during the period from 1811 to 1813 considerable quantities of this class of sugar were made. Simultaneously with this new venture the beet root was gaining in importance year by year, especially in France, and to a certain extent as well in other European countries, until after extensive experiments in plant breeding it was learned that the sucrose value of the root could be very much improved. From this work varieties of beets used to-day have evolved which often contain as high as 20 to 25 per cent sucrose. Another obstacle in the way was the bad taste and odor of the low-grade sugars from the beets and the difficulty of making a high-grade sugar. To-day the heavy liming and the carbonation process give a sugar equal in all respects to the best grade of granulated cane sugar, and one finds a great deal of beet sugar either mixed with cane sugar or marketed alone under the name of cane sugar.
At the present time the beet-sugar industry has become so important that more than eight million tons, or about one-half of all the sugar produced, comes from this source.
There is a greater consumption of sugar each year which necessitates greater production either through larger areas, heavier yields, or its manufacture from other sacchariferous plants. The maximum in both area and yield have by no means been reached, while in recent years a large number of sacchariferous plants have attracted the attention of various investigators throughout the sugar world, and this will in all probability lead to a new source of supply. The most promising of these plants is the sugar palm . Extensive work was conducted on this palm by this Bureau and reported in the May, 1914, number of the Philippine Agricultural Review. During the above-mentioned year an entirely new method of juice clarification was elaborated which is applicable to the juices of various other palms as well as to that of the sugar cane.
In Bengal the wild date palm has produced a low grade of molasses sugar for consumption by the natives for a great number of years. The main obstacle encountered in making a good grade of sugar from this palm has been caused by the difficulty of clarification and the susceptibility of the juice to fermentation. It is thought that the above-mentioned process may bring this palm into greater prominence in the sugar world.
There are also the Palmera of Southern India, and the Nipa of the Philippines. Either of these could undoubtedly be made profitable sugar producers. The latter is used commercially only as a source of alcohol.
There is practically no limit to the number of sacchariferous plants one might name in the Tropics and subtropics, but many of these do not contain a sufficient percentage of sucrose, or else they contain such a high percentage of impurities that the low yield of sugar and the high cost of manufacture make their use unprofitable.
CITRUS FRUITS IN THE PHILIPPINES.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
De Candolle, in his "Origin of Cultivated Plants," discusses 5 species belonging to the genus Citrus: The pomelo, C. decumana L.; the citron, lemon, and lime, here considered as distinct species, which he includes under the one species, C. medica L.; the sweet orange, C. aurantium L., which he separates from the sour orange and which is also by him considered as a distinct species, C. vulgaris Risso; and finally the mandarin, C. nobilis Lour. Of these, the pomelo, orange, mandarin, lemon, lime, and citron are important pomologically, the sour orange being grown principally as stock for the other species.
The pomelo is by the same author considered to be indigenous to the Pacific Islands east of Java, the citron and affiliated species to have originated in India, and the sour orange east of India, and all to have been in cultivation for over two thousand years. The antiquity of the orange and mandarin is less, both species being from China and Cochin China.
All these species have been introduced into the Philippine Archipelago, and are well distributed excepting the sour orange, which is rarely seen. The discussion of all species refers to them as found in the Philippines except when otherwise stated.
No very distinct types are found among the oranges or mandarins; the variation in the pomelo is considerable, although, so far as the writer has noted, scarcely enough to warrant the distinction of separate varieties. Both the white and red-fleshed types occur with many gradations, but no studies have been made to note which other correlative characters, if any, are identified with these different forms. The very primitive pomelos that are not infrequently seen in cultivation might indicate that this species is indigenous to the Philippines, though so far as the writer knows the tree has never been seen in the virgin forest. Closer observations have been made on the general type represented by the citron, including the lemon and lime, and several distinct forms have been recognized.
The calamondin, C. mitis Blanco, is well known to be indigenous, as well as the cabuyao and related plants that have been referred to C. histrix DC. In the first-named species there seem to be no very marked variations.
C. histrix was described by De Candolle, flowers and fruits excepted, from a plant growing in Montpellier, being recognized principally by its long broad-winged petioles and free stamens. The writer has not had the opportunity to see the original description of C. histrix or examine the type specimen, but Swingle refers to it in Jour. of Agri. Research, Vol. I, No. 1, page 10, 1913, as having broadly winged petioles, often larger than the blades, the wings being more gradually narrowed toward the base and usually more abruptly truncate at the tip than C. ichangensis Swingle, making then somewhat triangular in outline.
Within these broad limitations a number of otherwise remarkably distinct forms may be recognized some of which were illustrated in a previous publication, Bureau of Agriculture Bulletin No. 27, Citriculture in the Philippines, 1913, and referred to C. histrix with the statement that "some of these forms unquestionably will be recognized as subspecies on closer study, or possibly as separate species." Since then several plants of this type in the citrus collection assembled at Lamao by the Bureau of Agriculture have bloomed and fruited, affording an opportunity for fuller observations, and these have been further complemented during a trip to Bohol and Cebu in May, 1914, and by the fruits forwarded by Mr. E. F. Southwick.
However, assuming that C. histrix is the C. histrix of De Candolle, there still remain, on one hand the limao, and on the other the biasong, balincolong, samuyao, samuyao-sa-amoo, as widely different from each other and the cabuyao and its subspecies as for instance the orange, and pomelo, or the mandarin and the calamondin. A very interesting characteristic has been discovered in several of the citrus fruits that have free stamens in the form of a more or less distinct nucleus in the juice cells; this, so far as the writer knows, has not been previously recorded in a citrus fruit. The fact that the presence of these nuclei is not here referred to in some species with free stamens does not necessarily mean that they are absent, considering that fruits of these particular species have not been examined since the first nuclear cells were discovered. The writer is inclined to believe that these nuclei are correlative to those species having free stamens.
To the student in the citrus-growing sections of the United States the characterization of the citron, lemon and lime as given herein is no doubt satisfactory, but in the Philippines various forms called "limon" will appear that do not agree with this and it would then be necessary either to make the descriptions more general so as to cover the additional forms or to classify these as species or subspecies. If the barely margined petioles, comparatively small leaves, the green, tender growth and the white corolla are insisted upon for the lime, for instance, it is difficult to know where to place the purple-growthed, thorny, wide-winged, purplish-petaled, subglobose limes with wide-winged leaves of the Philippines. They cannot well be placed with the lemons, and still less with the citron, though they of course show strong relationship to each. The citron group of the genus perhaps more than any other shows the need of further study and systematization of the entire genus.
Attention should be called to the presence in the Philippines of the extremely primitive types of the citron and the lemons;
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