INSTITUTE, PTJSA, FOR 1919-20 117 



making the services of expert chemists available, in the matter 

 of the terms on which land might be held, in the matter of 

 irrigation and other facilities and so forth. Government replied 

 that they were alive to the position and. were doing their best to 

 improve the methods of cane cultivation and the manufacture of 

 sugar throughout the country. Both the resolution and the amend- 

 ment were lost. But in November of the same year the question 

 of the Indian sugar industry was considered by the Board of 

 Agriculture in India, and as the result of its recommendations the 

 appointments of a Sugarcane Expert and a Sugar Engineer were 

 sanctioned for a term of years. The headquarters of the former 

 officer were located at Coimbatore in Southern India as canes were 

 found to flower there (this is not the case in Northern India), faci- 

 litating thereby the work of raising better varieties of canes by 

 crossing. The Sugar Engineer was stationed in the United Pro- 

 vinces where more than half the total acreage under the crop is 

 grown, his duties being to work out the smallest economical size 

 of a sugar factory suitable for Indian conditions and to advise the 

 public on factory matters. As stated above, both these were on 

 a temporary footing. Nevertheless they marked a stage forward 

 in the policy of developing the Indian sugarcane industry. Since 

 then almost every meeting of the Board has reviewed the work done 

 on this crop at the various experiment stations in the country. 



The great European war brought the question of the Empire 

 sugar supply to the forefront. The usual sources of beet sugar 

 supply, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, having been cut 

 off, the world was faced with a serious shortage of sugar, and India 

 in common with the rest had to pay heavily for her imports. It 

 was in these circumstances that the Board of Agriculture met 

 at Poona in December 1917, and the opinion was unanimous that 

 the time was ripe for making a further move in the policy of develop- 

 ing the Indian sugarcane industry. It was the general opinion of 

 the Board that no time should be lost in starting an office where 

 information on all aspects of the Indian sugar industry could be 

 obtained, the "information available at that time being scattered 

 in the Secretariats of the various Governments in India, in the 

 records of the late Reporter on Economic Products to the Govern- 

 ment of India, and in the offices of the Director-General of Com- 

 mercial Intelligence, the Government Sugarcane Expert, and the 

 Directors and Deputy Directors of Agriculture in the provinces; 

 this information was to be collected, sifted, reviewed and made 

 available to Government and the public. In view of the prevailing 

 high price of sugar acting as an incentive to putting up factories 



