March i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



65' 



equally good speciinenscouUbe culled; indeed, we know that 

 some varieties of Australian cane, such as the ■' Red 

 ^isaam " affected by Queensland planters, have originally 

 been borrowed from India. As regards its sugar-giving 

 qualities, however, the Australian cane is greatly superior 

 to anything grown in this country. The causes seem to 

 lie at once in the soil, in the method of cultivation, 

 and in the processes of manufacture. Two descrip- 

 tions of soil are especially adapted to sugar cultivation 

 in Queensland. The so-called " scrub soil " may be com- 

 pared to the forest clearings which are favourite spots 

 for the growth of cane in the extreme east of India. 

 The scrub is in fact a forest of tall soft-wood trees, 

 fastened togelhcr*by a dense network of vines, and pre- 

 senting a shade through which tlie sun's rays are unable 

 etfectually to penetrate ; no breeze ever waves beneath 

 the huge branches, and the unsunned earth lies damp all 

 the year round. Scrub soil is of a chocolate colour, sometimes 

 verging upon red. Alluvial soil, on the other hand, is a 

 rich brown loam, generally destitute of trees. In neither 

 case is any manuring necessary, and the same iield will 

 go on producing cane year after year with apparently 

 undiminished fertility, but the ploughing is very deep 

 and thorough, hoeing and weeding are carried on at re- 

 gular intervals, and the ventilation so necessary to the 

 health of the standing crop is effected by " trashing " 

 the full-grown cane, or stripping it of its superfluous 

 leaves. It is this last operation specially which the ad- 

 vocates of cooly importation allege to be loo severe 

 for Europeans in the tropical climate of the sugar-grow- 

 iug parts of Australia, and in fact the majority of the 

 hands on a cane i lantatii n are usually Kanakas, though 

 even in the hottest districts European settlers are to be 

 found who cultivate their own little patches of land, and 

 bring the produce to some large central factory to be 

 jou.shcd and converted iuto sugar. The amount of enterprize 

 and capital which has been lavished upon the construction fo 

 htese factories presents a magnificent contrast to the beggarly 

 progress of the industrial arts in India. An Australian 

 sugarmill has not only the latest machinery for crushing, 

 boiling, and refining, but all the auxilliary appliances ne- 

 ce,-:sary for saving manual labour in disposing of large 

 quantities of raw produce— railways running overhead be- 

 tween the different buildings, and the electric light turned on 

 the fields, so that work may go on b\- night during the 

 busy season ; and all this in places which were not heard 

 of twenty years ago, and which are still mere cases of 

 civilization in the immense wastes of an unreclaimed and 

 unpeopled country. 



It is not easy to render a reason off-hand why sugar- 

 cane cultivatioii should receive all this attention in Aus- 

 tralia, while in India, so far as we are aware, it is ab- 

 solutely neglected by European capitalists. If the refined 

 sugars of India are ii;capable of competing with those of 

 the Mauritius aud other places, the fault is primuarily to 

 be found in an inferior stock, the product of random propag- 

 ation and uneulighteued culture, and consequently yield- 

 ing a juice deficient in crystalizable quality. One cannot, in- 

 deetl, a-cuse the ryot of any want of laboriousness. 

 Every sugar-growing district has its rustic proverb, ex- 

 pressing in uncouth rhymes the toil and expense, the 

 ' hundred ploughings ' that are necessary to prepare the 

 field for this valuable crop. But the ryot, after all, can 

 only work according to his means and bis lights. Deep plough- 

 ing is usually beyond his power, and his sense of the advant- 

 ages to be gained by a careful selection of the plant is 

 as yet deplorably undeveloped. The importance of seed 

 selection is one of the points which agricultural depart- 

 ments are stiiving to impress upon the ryot as the best 

 way of promotirg the wbeat tiade which is becoming such 

 a source of wealth to the country. There is plenty of 

 room for the application of the same principle to sugar- 

 cane. In the Punjab, for instance, the weight of cane per 

 acre is estimated by the Settlement Officers of the best dis- 

 tricts at about thirteen tons, or one-half the rate of pro- 

 duce yielded by a good Queensland plantation, where 

 the soil is much deeper ploughed than in India, but 

 where, on the other hand, artificial stimulants are not 

 employed, while in these Punjab districts each acre of soil 

 receives eleven tons of manure. The Bourbon cane in 

 Queensland is even capable of atfording, from a second or 

 ralconcd crop (which is alwavs decieledly inferior to the 



first), more than double the Indian average of sugar per 

 acre of cane. It is impossible that these vast differences 

 can be wholly due to the comparative uufertility of the 

 Indian soil, or the inadeejuacy of the treatment it rectiies 

 from the ryot. "We cannot but believe that by intro- 

 ducing a better stock, and bestowing some intelligent care 

 upon its j)ropagatiou, the value of the annual cane crop 

 might be very considerably increased. There is no reason 

 in the world why a product must be inferior merely 

 because it is Indi.an. In the matter of manufacture, the 

 first steps towards improvement have been taken already . 

 The success of the Bihia mill proves that the ryot has 

 no unconquerable aversion to the use of a new-fangied 

 machine which is demonstrably cheaper than his old tra- 

 ditional apparatus. Assuming that the Bihia mill enables the 

 ryot to extract in juice 6U per cent, of the weight of the 

 cane, instead of one-half its weight only (and a country 

 mill must be one of exceptional power to extract so much 

 as one-half), tlie value of the sugar harvest is immediately 

 enhanced by one-fifth, and the total addition to the wea.th 

 of the country may be reckoned iu erores of rupees. But 

 satisfactory as all this is, it still falls far shoit of what 

 might be effected in this branch of industry. ^Vliile we 

 are still pottering away with small machines eiriven by 

 cattle or by manuai laboiu-, anel crushijig perhaps a ton- 

 and-half of cane iu a hard day's work, an AustraUau mill 

 of unambitious dimensions turns out its three tons of 

 white sugar daily, or 15 tons a week, allowing one day for 

 clearing up. In the refining processes, indeed, India enjoys 

 the benefit of the latest inventions, but no amount of 

 skill and enterprise will enable the Auglo-Indian refiner to 

 eliminate the essential faults in the raw material which 

 comes into his haneis. In co-operation with the Bihia mill, 

 we want some simple machine which the ryot can be in- 

 ducetl to use in the place of his own ruele and wasteful 

 method of converting caue juice iuto coarse sugar. An 

 American apparatus, imported by the C'awnpore experi- 

 mental farm last year, proved very successful, and if it can 

 bo reproduced in the fiarm workshops at a price that will 

 place it within the means of the ryot, it seems Ukely to 

 become popular. 



There is, however, a great deal more to be done before 

 sugar can begin to take its place with wheat as a regular 

 article of ludian export. From planting to refining, every 

 stage of sugar cultivation needs to be raised towards the 

 level which has already been attained in other countries. 

 A elegenerate plant, imperfect crushing, ami wa.-teful boil- 

 ing, give between them a smaller outteirn of sugar than is 

 recoreled in any other part of the worlel where caue is grow 

 A ton-aad-a-quarter of gur per acre is considered a splendid 

 return iu Cpper India ; indeed, ''he recent Punjab papers 

 elo not estimate anythiug so high even for the best harve sts. 

 Converted into white sugar, the proeluce would ceitainly 

 not exceed half-a-ton per acre. Comparing this with the 

 records of a Queeuslaud plantation, where 80 acres of caue 

 yielded 288 tons of white sugar last year, we see at once 

 how far India lags behinel in the iudu>trial race. The pro- 

 gress of moelern science, unfortunately, tends to leave her 

 still further in the rear, by increasing the elistance be- 

 tween European machinery in its latest developments and 

 such simple forms of improvetl appliances as the ryot is 

 able to master. For instance, it has been scientifically 

 proved, quite recently, that even the best steam mills fai. 

 to express a large proportion of the ;uice in sugarcane ; 

 the refuse, as it comes from the mill, still contains much 

 sugar which is thrown away for want of a means of getting 

 it out. Now, it is quite reasonable to expect that the 

 general recognition of the loss thus inci rrad wiilinashoit 

 time leael to the invention of a mill vhich shall expre^s 

 the juice more thoroughly, but such a machine is not at 

 all likely to be within the command of the Indian ryct, 

 and it is quite possible, therefore, that even with his Bibia 

 mill he may finel himself at a greater disadvantage than 

 ever in comparison with vhe capitalist sugar-growers cf 

 other countries. The same th'ng may Le said cf the im- 

 provements "West Indian boiling bouses, "nbere the as^istanee 

 of chemistry has been called in with ^uch signal efl'cct. 

 So long as it was merely a question of Ci.uldrons, great or 

 small, one hael at least the satisfaction oi knowing that the 

 Indian lyot waseloiiig in bis small way much the same kiuel 

 of thing as the Demeraia planter did on a more magnificent 

 scale. But the vacuum-pan has lifted the whole matter iuto 



