INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, PUSA, FOR 1907-09. 25 



4. Special Croups under Experiment. — These included 

 (a) sugarcane, {h) jute, (c) flax, and {d) tobacco. 



{a) Sugarcane. — Experimental work on sugarcane is at 

 present confined to determining the best varieties and the 

 best conditions as regards cultivation, manuring, planting 

 and irrigation. The results obtained will have only a 

 local application, and it is recognised that the present 

 work must either pave the way for larger investigations 

 on this important crop, or, if local conditions are found to 

 be unsuitable, work on the crop will be abandoned altoge- 

 ther. In the course of the last five years a large number of 

 thick and of thin varieties of cane from all parts of India 

 have been under trial. With regard to the thick varieties 

 it has been found to be impossible, even with liberal 

 manuring, to obtain the heavy crops grown in the best cane 

 tracts, the maximum yield hitherto obtained being 35 tons 

 of stripped canes per acre. The length and thickness of 

 the individual canes are satisfactory, but the stools are 

 deficient in tillering power, and the fact that many, from 

 various causes, succumb altogether during the growing 

 season, is further evidence of rather low vitality. The 

 thin varieties, on the other hand, in most cases tiller ex- 

 tremely well, and with an application of oil cake or farm- 

 yard manure equivalent to lOOtb of nitrogen per acre, and 

 with one or at most two waterings after planting, can, in a 

 normal season, be depended on to give yields of 30 tons of 

 stripped canes per acre. This, considering the compara- 

 tively low expenditure on the crop, is quite a satisfactory 

 return. Various sugar factories have been established in 

 Behar in the last few j^ears, and these deal almost entirely 

 with thin canes. Provided the difficulty is overcome of 

 securing from a moderate distance a sufficient supply of 

 canes to keep the mills going, there appears to be no reason 

 why these should not prove a success. 



(h) Jute. — Forty-four varieties of jute were grown on 

 an area of 8 acres in 1907 and gave an average yield of 16|- 

 maunds of fibre per acre, the season being no better than 



