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If any one wishes to know more on this matter, let him consult the catalogue of contributions from British Guiana to the London Exhibition of 1862; especially the pages from lix. to lxviii. on the starch-producing plants of the West Indies.
During the eleventh century the method of making alcoholic drinks from starch-producing substances, such as wheat, barley, and potatoes, became quite generally known, and also the method of concentrating them by distillation. This knowledge made possible the manufacture of alcoholic drinks in large quantities and in considerable variety.
Whether the same holds good for the starchy parent, it is impossible to judge from the inspection of the spikes, since it has been seen in the first generation that the hybrid kernels are not visibly distinguished from those of the pure starch-producing grains. It is very easy to count the number of both sorts of grains in the spike of such a hybrid.
When such derivatives are crossed with ordinary starch-producing types, the starch prevails in the hybrid. It would take too much time to give further examples. But there is still one point which should be insisted upon.
As to their composition they repeat the active character of the starchy variety. The sugar is only accumulated as a result of an incapacity of changing it into starch, and the lack of this capacity is to be considered as a retrogressive varietal mark. The starch-producing unit character, which is active in the ordinary sorts of corns, is therefore latent in sugar-corn.
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