26 REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE 



pressure than would occur in a small heap ; the care which 

 could be economically devoted to the handling of a large 

 quantity of cane might not be sufficient to prevent consider- 

 able breakage of cane, resulting in a possibly serious 

 amount of rotting ; it was also desirable to estimate the cost 

 of clamping. 



Accordingly Mr. Robertson Brown arranged to calmp 

 two lots of sugarcane in January, the one from approxi- 

 mately an acre and weighing about 20 tons, the other from 

 half an acre and weighing about 16 tons. The former 

 was " striped Mauritius," the latter " local pounda " cane. 

 These two lots of cane were put into the clamps during the 

 1st week of January and the clamps were opened and 

 tested during the third week of March, that is after a 

 period of about 10 weeks. In the following table the chief 

 data are set out, from which it will be seen that the amount 

 of change suffered by the cane was nominal. 



These two experiments leave no doubt that sugarcane 

 can be safely preserved in clamps until the end of March at 

 Peshawar without suffering any serious loss. The number 

 of canes which rotted in the clamp was very small; rotting 

 was quite definitely restricted to cane which had been 

 accidentally cut or broken and did not extend beyond the 

 originally damaged part, nor did it spread to sound cane. 

 No sound cane was damaged at all. 



