»i4 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[May I, 1884, 



left in the ground for three years, and in the Oumbuin 

 taluk for as long as ten years, the yield diminishing each 

 year. These instances of slovenly agriculture are, however, 

 exceptional. The cultivator usually permits land which 

 has borne some other crop to lie fallow for a year, and 

 then prepares it for the cane hy several ploughings, or by 

 breaking it up with crowbars which disturbs it to a depth 

 of nearly a foot, and by heavily manuring the soil with 

 whatever manure he can obtain, the most common manure 

 being that obtained by picketing his herds or folding his 

 flocks upon the land. The land having been manured, 

 ploughed and Hooded, the cane is planted. 



The cane in India never bears seed, although it flowers. 

 It is always propagated by cuttings. The top of the cane 

 is commonly used, but some cultivators leave a few canes 

 growing in the fields from the previous year and cut them 

 up into lengths of one or two joints. These tops or 

 cuttings are planted horizontally in the wet soil about 

 eighteen inches from each other in rows about four feet 

 " apart. Sis days afterwards the field is again watered, and 

 about the twentieth day four or si.x .shoots sprout from each 

 cutting. In Ganjam and Vizagajiatam, some ryots plant 

 the cuttings in nurseries and afterwards plant out the shoots 

 in the fields. 



After the shoots appear in the field, the ground is weeded 

 and hoed, and when they are about a mouth old, chaff, 

 weeds or some such manure is thrown around them. The 

 soil is kept moist by occasional irrigation, and wlien about 

 thi'CG mouths old the shoots ought to be a yard high. 



After this stage, it often becomes necessary to give the 

 canes support, and this is done by bamboos or by a sapling 

 stuck into the ground in the middle of each group of 

 canes, the leaves being tied round so as to bind the canes 

 together. This process requires constant care imtil the 

 cane, at ten months from planting, is ready for cutting. It 

 is then from four to six feet in length and about an inch- 

 and-a-half in diameter. In the Vizagapatam district, it has 

 attained a diameter of four inches. 



The rich alluvial soils near the mouths of rivers are best 

 adapted to the cane, but it is useless to attempt to grow 

 cane upon land which cannot be irrigated during ten 

 months of the year. The black soil (regur) which suits 

 sorghum does not suit sugar-cane, unless there is a con- 

 siderable admixture of sand. It is remarkable that, al- 

 though half the cane in the presidency is grown in the 

 districts of Ganjam, Vizagapatam and Godavari, and al- 

 though there is cane also grown in North Arcot, Nellorc 

 and Kurnool districts, there is not a single acre under that 

 crop in the Kistria. The black soil is not suitable, and the 

 channels in the Kistna delta do not carry a sufficiently 

 continuous supply of water. 



For the presidency generally, Mr. Wilson, would take 

 the cost of production at K150 per acre, and estimates the 

 outturn at 22h tons of stripped cane, yielding 4.5 cwt. of 

 jaggery, worth 11250. This would give a profit of RlOO an 

 acre, but it must be remembered that the laud lies fallow 

 in the previous year, and this circumst.ance must be taken 

 into account in any calculation of the profits. 



At Aska, in Ganjam, Messrs. Bliuchin & Co., and in 

 South Arcot IMcssrs. Parry & Co. and a native capitalist, 

 have European machinery. At Aska, the cane is sliced and 

 the juice is extracted by the action of hot water, which is 

 afterwards evaporated, the process requiring a large ex- 

 penditure of fuel. In South Arcot, the process is that 

 usual in the colonies, the cane being crushed in a three- 

 roller mill, and the juice defecated with lime and passed 

 through filters before being boiled in vacuo, the molasses 

 being driven off by centrifugal action. The sugar pre- 

 pared by either process is much the same in appearance, the 

 grain is small and white. 



The ordinary process of manufacture of coarse jaggery 

 does not differ from that in use in other parts of India. 

 A wooden mill of two or three cylindrical upright rollers 

 working into each other by endless screws at the top, the 

 spirals being cut in opposite directions, is moved b) a 

 lever turned by bullocks. The canes, cut into pieces two 

 or three feet long, after being soaked in water for a day, 

 are passed between the rollers, and the juice flows down 

 into a pit and thence by a channel into a tub or pot 

 sunken in the earth. Near by is a boiler, and the crushed 

 canes serve as fuel. The juice is ])oured into tlie boiler 

 ;iud a lump of lime is added. Sometimes gingelly-oil 



(sesamum) is also added. The juice is constantly stirred 

 while boiling. To ascertain if it has arrived at the proper 

 consistency, some is dropped into cold water, and if this 

 solidifies, the boiling is poured into wooden vessels or bags 

 and left to cool, when it becomes jaggery. 



In North Arcot and Cuddapah, there is a rude process 

 of refining the jaggery. The boiling is stopped before the 

 stage of crystallization, and the juice is poured into pots 

 with holes, through which the molasses drain for twenty 

 days, leaving a crust of sugar, which is removed, boiled 

 twice again and purified by means of milk and ghee. Some- 

 times when the crust of sugar is reboiled, thin slips o{ 

 bamboo are left in the pot f<ir forty days, and the syrup 

 is allowed to drain off. The slips of bamboo are then 

 found to be coated with sugarcandy. 



The cidtivation and manufactm-e of sugar is steadily in- 

 creasing year by year in this presidency. 



The profits are doubtless much greater than that derived 

 from any other cultivation. They amount to at least R70 

 per acre, while the profit from indigo does not ordinarily 

 exceed R50 per acre. 



The local consumption is not affected by foreign com- 

 petition, as only refined sugar is imported, but Messrs. 

 Minchin ^c Co. state that, since the import duty of 5 per 

 cent, was removed, they have been unable to compete in 

 the Bombay market with Blauritius sugar. If .means could 

 be taken to render the surf on the Ganjam coast pass- 

 able, or if Ganjam were connected by caual with other 

 communications, Messrs. Minchin could undersell the Maur- 

 itius sugar at Bombay. 



If the average production be taken at -15 cwt. per acre, the 

 total jaggery produi-ed in this presidency from cano would 

 amount to about 1 .oO.OOO tons. To this must be added the 

 jaggery produced from 5,000 acres of coconut trees, probably 

 12,500 tons ; the jaggery produced from about 25,000 acres 

 'of palmyra trees, probably 125,000 tons; and also that 

 produced from about 1,500 acres of date and sago palms, 

 probably 4,500 tons ; giving a total estimate of 292,000 

 tons of saccharine matter for the whole presidency. 



The imports from foreign countries are insignificant, 

 seldom exceeding 2.0O0 cwt. per nnuum. 



The exports have increased rapidly since the famine, and 

 in 1S82-83 reached a total of 1,246,064 cwt. valued at 

 R75,68,940. 



The Milk in the Cocontjt. — The coconut is a subject 

 well deserving of the most sympathetic treatment at the 

 geTtle hands of grateful humanity. No other plant is use- 

 ful to us in so many diverse and remarkable manners. 

 The solid part of the nut supplies food almost alone to 

 thousands of people daily, and the milk serves them for 

 drink, thus acting as an efficient filter to the water ab- 

 sorbed by the roots in the most polluted or malarious re- 

 gions. If you tap the flower stalk you get a sweet juice, 

 which can be boiled down into the peculiar sugar called 

 (in the charming dialect of commerce) jaggery ; or it can 

 be fermented into a very nasty spirit known as palm-wine, 

 toddy, or arrack ; or it can be mixed with bitter herbs 

 and roots to make that delectable compound "native beer.' 

 Even as things stand at the present day Englishmen from 

 morning to night never leave off being indebted to it. 

 We wash with it as old brown Windsor or glycerine soap 

 the mon; ut we leave our beds. AVe walk across our pass- 

 ages on tlu^ mats made from its fibre. We sweep our rooms 

 with its '.irushes, and wipe our feet on it as we enter our 

 doors. .\s rope, it ties up our trunks and packages ; in 

 the iKiuds of the housemaid it scrubs our floors, or else, 

 woven into coarse cloth, it acts as a covering for bales and 

 furniture sent by rail or steamboat. The confectioner 

 undermines our digestion in early life with coconut candy ; 

 the cook tempts us later on with coconut cake; and Messrs. 

 Huntley & Palmer cordially invite us to complete the ruin 

 with coconut biscuits. We anoint our ch,apped bands with 

 one of its preparations after washing ; and grease the wheels 

 of our carriages with ar.other to make them run smoothly. 

 Finally we use the oil to burn in our reading lamps, and 

 light ourselves at last to bed with steariue candles. Alto- 

 gether, an amateiu* census of a single small English cot- 

 tage results in the startling discovery that it contains 

 twenty-seven distinct articles which owe their origin in one 

 way or another to the coconut y>a,\m.—Comliill Magazine. 



