Vol. VIII. No. 190. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



24.3. 



SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



Sugar Growing and Manufacture in Northern 

 India. 



The following article, from trhe Aj/riculiurcd 

 Journal of Xoiilu'w Iix/ia, Vol. IV, Part 2, gives 

 some facts in connexion with the sugar in<lustry in 

 Northern India : — 



Several attempts have been made in recent j-ears to 

 manufacture white sugar direct from sugar-cane as is done in 

 the West Indies, Egypt, Mauritius, and other sugar-growing 

 countries. Considerable capital lias been invested in these 

 undertakings, the best up-to-date machinery imported from 

 Europe, and skilled Europeans with expert knowledge, 

 commercial, technical and scientific, have been employed. 

 In spite, however, of what would ajipear to be most favour- 

 able auspices, careful supervision, and a very large demand 

 for the manufactured article, none ot these undertakinirs 

 have so far achieved more than a very moderate success, and 

 most have had to face serious pecuniary loss. 



At first .-jight, no country in the "world would appear to 

 otter a better field for the cane and sugar industry than 

 India. The consumption of .sugar by the inhabitants of this 

 country is enormous, and upwards of half a million tons of 

 sugar are imported into India annually. Why then has the 

 sugar-making industry not made better progress ? Various 

 causes have contributed to handicap these pioneer efforts. 

 Although sugar-cane has been grown throughout Northern 

 India for some 2,000 years, the quality of the crop has never 

 been as high as in other cane-growing countries, either as 

 regards the weight of cane grown per acre, or the sugar 

 content per 100 of canes. 



The Indian cultivator at his best is hard to beat, 

 although his methods and implements may appear primitive 

 to western agriculturists. He is quick to adopt improve- 

 ments in cultivation and seed if he is satisfied that they will 

 increase his profits : but in the growing of sugar-cane, he is 

 faced with two serious problems. The soil has been exhausted 

 by many centuries of continuous cropjiing, and the supply 

 of .suitable manures at a moderate cost is very limited. 

 A greater difficulty still is the clir.iate. The aujiual rainfall, 

 though usually sufficient in quantity, is badly distributed 

 throughout the year, being concentrated into a few months, 

 followed by many months of extreme dryness. These two 

 causes, however, Vvould not alone be sulficient to account for 

 the indittercnt success of large central cane factories ; fresh 

 sources of manure can be discovered, and the short period ot 

 growth, due to the concentration of the rainfall, can be 

 mitigated by carefidly thought-out schemes of irrigation. 



The Indian cane factory has against them, on the credit 

 side, the saving in manufacturing losses by a continuous 

 process, and the economy in freight and transit charges by 

 having a ready market at the door. The greatest difficulty, 

 however, with which a central cane factory has to contend 

 is the nature of Indian land tenure, by which the country is 

 split up into a niultiplicitj of small holdings, and thi.s seems 

 to be an insuperable one. The effect of this system of cultiva- 

 tion in innumerable sn»all farms is that concentration of crop 

 round the factory is. in most instances, impossible. The cane 

 is grown in small isolated patches, and in order to feed 

 a large factory,, it has to be collected from a very large 



area radiating many miles from the factory, with all the 

 consequent heavy cost of handling and c urying entailed in 

 dealing with a commodity so heavy and bulky as raw sugar- 

 cane : this, combined with the inevitable deterioration and 

 loss of sugar by inversion during the period of transit from 

 the fields to the mill, more than counterbalances the benefit 

 gained by th.-' coi^tiiiuous jjrocess. It would seem, therefore, 

 that central sugar factories can only be profitably worked, if 

 at all, in canal coloiiifs or largo zamindaries where a con- 

 centrated area is available under the personal control of the 

 owner or plantci'. 



If the sugar industry in India is to hold its own againi*-. 

 the foreign importer, development will have to be along the 

 line of intense cultivation by the grower, to increase the out- 

 turn of .sucrose per acre, and improvements in the making of 

 raw jaggery or (tii/ by the villager, preventing the heavy 

 losses by inver.sion and adulteration entailed by the crude 

 methois f.t present employed. If this can be done, the 

 Indian refiner will have nothing to fear from foreign competi- 

 tion in India, and may even in time be able to export to. 

 other markets, if not barred by prohibitive protective duties. 



FORESTRY IN TRINIDAD. 



It will be remembered that, in the issue of the 

 A(/ricultvral News dated May 29, 1909, the editorial 

 dealt with the subject of timber production. Special 

 reference was made, in the last paragraph of that 

 article, to the work in Jamaica and Dominica in this 

 connexion. 



Since then, through the courtesy of Mr. C. S. 

 Rogers, Forest Officer, Trinidad, information has been 

 received concerning the forest work in Trinidad and 

 Tobago. This information is comprised in the Annual 

 Reports of the Forest Officer for the years 1901-8, 

 in a R^^port (1900) by Mr. F. Lodge, I.F.S., on 

 Forest Conservation in Trinidad and Tobago, and in 

 the Crown Land Forest Produce Rules for those 

 islands. The following account which has its origin in 

 the above source.'^, will serve to indicate, in some 

 measure, the work that is being done : — 



The annual vote on the estimates for forestry in Trinidad 

 for the last eight years has been £1,000, and, although this 

 annual sum is not large, the work has been steadily continued 

 during the whole of that period. The chief object of conserva- 

 tion is the protection of the water-supply. Subordinate to 

 this, nevertheless of great importance, are those of the 

 conservation of areas required for the present or future 

 supply of fuel to towns and villages, and the regulation of 

 the rate of removal of timber and other forest products. In 

 furtherance of these objects, the chief work that is being 

 done includes the following: the demarcation of foi-est 

 reserves and the subsequent improvement of them ; the 

 issuing of leases and licenses for the cutting and disposal of 

 timber, etc., and the enforcement of the rules under which 

 these operations may be performed ; the preparation of plans 

 and boundary records of the reserves ; the in.spection of the 

 boundaries of the reserves. 



The revenue from timber and other forest produce for 

 the year 1906-7 was £2,147 against £1,872 the year before; 

 showing an increase of £27-5 over that year, and £1.037 over 

 the average for fourteen years. That in the period 1907-8 

 showed a decrease of £77.5 from the one in 1906-7. The 

 decrease is due to the less work being done on road.s, and the 

 large areas of land sold, from which the timber was disposed 

 of at lower rates than those fixed for timber from Crown lands. 



