Honolulu Record, September 9, 1948, vol. 1 no. 6, p. 1

What - No Sex Life For Sugar Cane?

Wake up, sugar, your lazy days are over! Nope, we're not addressing a slatternly sweatheart [sic]. It's just that the scientists of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters have discovered sugar cane is loafing on the job, and they're going to do something about it. Sugar cane, believe it or not, has been wasting time growing tassels when it should be growing sugar. Furthermore, it's been carrying on this ac­tivity at night in a sort of subversive way.

So the scientists, according to a local report, have set up experiment stations at Makiki and on Kauai where they turn artificial light on sugar cane from 10 to 12 p. m. every night and catch the cane right in the act. So the cane must turn to, self-consciously no doubt, and get back to growing the way sugar men want it to.

The tassels are used in cross­breeding, but they retard growth in a way sugar men feel also retards profits. And anyhow, what's sex to a bunch of sugar cane?

So the end of such loafing and tassel-orgies for the sugar cane may be in sight. All we can say is—don't be surprised if that sugar turns out to be not quite so sweet as before.