Vol. VII. No. 155. 



THE AGRICULTUEAL NEWS. 



9? 





Cane Farminar in British Guiana. 



The Deiiierara Aryosy of Januaiy LS last 

 ■contained tlie following note on cane farming in British 

 ( Juiana: — 



Thf villagers at several places on the East Coast are 

 fultivatiicg sugar-canes to a much larger extent than has been 

 the practice ^^■ith them in former years. As a rule the canes 

 are sold by the villagers to the estate nearest them at a fair 

 market price: l.)Ut occasionally the estate may not be able to 

 take canes at the time they are ottered, and as this always 

 causes the villagers inconvenience and disappointment, there 

 is a desire on the part of some of them to start a mill for 

 themselves. The East Coast villagers have at least one 

 example to look to in their own district, of a small cane-mill 

 giving its owner a very fair return for his labour and capital ; 

 and they are clever enough to see that such a mill as this, 

 vvith a cheap and simple plant of machinery, capable of mak- 

 ing nmscovado sugar, is likely to pay better in the 

 future than it has done in the past, owing to the yearly 

 decreasing number of sugar estates with common process 

 machinery. In a very short time the number of such estates 

 which will be left promises to be too small to meet the local 

 demand for muscovados, and it looks as if the small mills of 

 the villagers have a promising future in store. 



Mexican Sugar Industry. 



A law has just been passed in Mexico raising the 

 duty on imported sugar from 2ic. to 5c. per 100 

 kilograms (220 lb.). The object of this duty is to 

 protect the growing sugar industry of the i-epublic, 

 and it will affect the United States more than any 

 other country, since the value of the sugar imports into 

 Mexico from the States duri'.ig the first five months of 

 1907 amounted to S78,472, the total sugar imports for 

 this period being valued at .':^90,162. 



Some account of the Mexican .sugar industry \\as given 

 in the Aiirictiltiiral Xe>f» of August 2-t last (Vol. VI, p. L'59), 

 and the figures then quoted indicated the continuous increase 

 in the output that h.is been going on during the past few 

 years. While the output in 1900 was oidy 75,000 tens, it 

 had increased to about 115,000 tons in 1907. 



It is stated in a recent U.S. Consular Rirpm-t that tlie 

 amount of foreign capital invested in sugar cultivation and 

 jjroduction in Mexico is continually increasing, advanced 

 methods of planting and harvesting are being introduced, 

 and modern mills and retineries erected. It is evident, there- 

 fore, that still further developments may I>e expected in the 

 near future. 



A grca'., deal of land in Mexico is suited to cane gi-o\\- 

 ing, and it is doubtless owing to the primitive metliods of 

 cultivation and manufacture employed, as well as to ditticnl- 

 ties in the way of transportation, that the republic has not 

 entered n)ore largely into the sugar export trade. Great 

 fertility cf soil abounds in the Gulf States, and the rainfall 

 is ample, l)eing estimateil at about 100 inches annualiy. In 



the inland State of ^lorelos, however, where the largest 

 quantity of sugar is produced, irrigation is necessarj-, as is 

 also true of cane lands on the Pacific coast. From 25 to- 

 -10 tons of cane per acre is said to be the average yield on 

 tlie elevated lands, with from 40 to 60 tons in the lowlands. 

 There are already two or three modern sugar factories 

 of considerable capacity in operation. One of the most 

 important is at Teuxtejiango, in the State of Morelos. This- 

 is caiiable ot turning out o,750 tons of sugar per annum 

 Another factory, that of the Mexican National Sugar 

 Kefining Company, was started early in the present year. 

 It contains a modern plant, equipped with the most up-to- 

 date sugar-making machinery. The factory has a daily 

 capacity of 125,000 lb. of sugar. The cane mill connected 

 ^^■ith this factory will be able to deal with 800 tons of cane- 

 a da\-, suiiplied from adjacent plantations. 



Cane-sugar Industry of Brazil. 

 The conditions of the Brazilian cane-sugar industry 

 were reviewed at considerable length in the Interna- 

 tional Sugar Journal for February last. The annual 

 production of sugar in Brazil amounts to about 300,000 

 tons, or rather moi-e than the annual output of the 

 West Indies and British Guiana. At present, there 

 are about 4,000 iisines and open-nan factories at work 

 in the republic. 



The chief sngar-pro lacing State is Pernambuco, which 

 pos.se.s.ses 1,547 factories and turns out 156,000 tons of sugar 

 each year. Bahia, however, is the State in which sugar manu- 

 facture has reached the greatest degree of perfection, 

 practically all the mills containing facilities for double 

 crushing. Large quantities of sugar are also produced in 

 States of Alagoas and Sergi()e. 



The system of cultivation in vogue appears to be some- 

 w^hat crude, excepting in the State of Sao Paulo, where more 

 up-to-date methods have been adopted. 



Planting takes place about ^larch and April, and the 

 canes take about fourteen to sixteen months to arrive at 

 maturity, the reaping .season conung from July to October.. 



Itatooning is extensively practised in Brazil, as many as 

 fiiur crops being obtained from one planting in this way. 



Use of Sugfar in Bread Manufacture. 



Several of the sugar journals have lately published 

 articles dealing with the use of a small amount of sugar 

 in bread manufacture. The Sugar Beet for January 

 has a short note on the subject. Apart from the advan- 

 tage claimed in this note, bread so prepared would, of 

 course, have an additional food value. 



The Sugar Beet says : — ■ 



In France every possible idea is being brought to the front 

 with the view of increasing the home sugar consumption^ 

 At a recent meeting of the Sugar Chemists' Association at 

 Bordeaux, a French chemist, Mons. F. Dupont, read a paper 

 discussing the possibility of adding 7 per cent, of sugar to 

 bread, and this without materially altering the taste of the 

 latter product. xVn addition of 5 per cent, of .sugar has no- 

 influence on the flavour. The chief advantage of this sugar 

 addition is that the bread has greater keeping (jualities. 

 Bread which 'vill ordinarily be sour in forty-eight hours, 

 will undergo very little alteration, even after several days, 

 when a slight proportion of sugar has been mixed with the 

 dough. 



