

Moth-bom. 



SACCHARUM 



DISEASES AND PESTS OFFICINARUM 



Cultivation 



saltpetre. Ha\ in- iven the Indian experience with each of the**, he next 

 proceed* to discuss the effect of manure* on the juice. [Cf. Sugar-cane Ci.li., m 

 Agri. Mad., 1905.] 



DISEASES AND PESTS. The blights of cane may be grouped into three Diaeaaet. 



MS ; 



(1) Fungal might*. Butler (Mem. Dept. Agri. Ind., > 



huh. in litrriitiin- MM tins subject, and f-i u.-h nr-u- mnl u*efui 



iiti..n. He describes the following diseases : (a) Red Rot (Red > 



* ,,ll.-'.,l,-i, /,,,, fnlrnttitH, Wtnt. (b) Slim!. I -ttlnga N*.r*H. *a6*ft*onr 

 ipplo disease, T*JrfHjmli rltxirrUm*. Went, (d) Hlllck Rot. MptHvrv 



</!,, OSM , . But/, (e) Brown Leaf-spot, >! iai/ii>f*. Buti. (/) Ring- 



Sp.it. l., l ,t,,Hi>hfft-ln Narfhmrl, Br. d. H. (g) Sooty M<>nM, rn|n4Mw. 



In .1 fun luT pup.-r. The Selection of Sugar-cane Cutting*, Butler (Agri. 

 Journ. In-l.. ii.. pt. ii.. 193-201) shows the imperative necessity to avoid usini? 

 .d HtorU. Barber published (Agri. Journ. Ind., i . ; i 



. 40) an account of the Samalkota Sugar-cane Farm, in which he deals 

 with 1 uitrtiiii-iriuim and shows that successive canes have held favour in 

 hnl 1. 1 during the past forty years, each in turn only to become diseased, thuM 

 ' idespread loss. But both these authors show that such calamities 

 i u i- ht !. to some extent at least, prevented were the stock rigorously selected. 



[Cf. D.E.P., vi., pt. ii., 122 ; Sugar-cane Di*ea*e*. Agri. Ledg., 1898, No. 13. 

 403-523 ; also Gage. 1901, No. ft, 71-95 ; Thiselton-Dyer, Sugar-cant Diseases of 

 H'. //,'/., in Ann. of Bot., 1900, xiv., 009-16 ; Botkr, Red Rot of Sugar-cane, in 

 Agri. Journ. Ind., 1906, i., pt. Hi., 259.] 



(2) insect Petti. Many writers have dealt with the pests, but more casually 

 than systematically. Saiyid Muhammad Hidi (Sugar Industry of U. Prov., 



1) reviews the papers previously published, besides contributing largely to 

 the subject himself. Cotes (Ind. Mus. Notes, i., 22-7) worked out tin- InV InHtories 

 of some of the sugar-cane pests, but it was left to Maxwell I..-tY"V t furnish full 

 details regarding the Moth-borers of the cane. The reader will find his first 

 contribution in The Agricultural Ledger (1900, No. 23), but this was hit 

 followed up by The Moth-borer in Sugar-cane, Maize and Sorghum in Western 

 lii'lid (Agri. Journ. Ind., 1906, i., pt. ii., 97-113). 



(3) Other Enemies and Pests. Perhaps the most serious that has to be men- 

 tioned in this place is the root parasite Niriyti luttn. This little flowering plant 

 injures the cane so seriously that a large percentage may often be seen to be 

 killed by it. The only known cure is to uproot the parasite as much as possible, 

 and to avoid growing cane on the same field for some years subsequent to a severe 

 attack. Wild animals, such as the jackal, the boar and the rat, often do much 

 injury to the crop, and frost or floods are alike disastrous. White ants are also 

 very destructive (Maxwell-Lefroy, Agri. Journ. Ind., 1906, i., pt. ii., 174-0; 

 also in Mem. Dept. Agri. Ind., 1907, i., No. 2, 120). For fuller detail regarding 

 the insect and fungal pests of sugar-cane, the reader should consult the impor- 

 tant work by Kruger (Doa Zuckerrohr und Seine Kultur, 1899, 301-460), which, 

 however, has more particular reference to Java. 



Bengal. The area under sugar-cane, according to the Final Memoran- cuT t * va . 



>f the Government of India for 1904-5, amounted to 633,000 acres, 

 and the estimated yield came to 634,700 tons of raw sugar or gur. The 

 Season and Crop Report for 1904-5 gives the areas in the various divisions 

 as follows : Patna, 166,000 acres ; Bhagalpur, 95,800 acres ; Rajshahi, 

 92,200 acres ; Dacca, 83,700 acres ; Bardwan, 79,300 acres ; Chota 

 Nagpur, 53,100 acres ; Presidency, 39,400 acres ; Chittagong, 17,500 

 acres ; and Orissa, 10,800 acres. In the year following, the apparent, but 

 not actual, decrease in area was due to 14 districts, previously returned 

 under Bengal, having been transferred to the new province of Eastern 

 Bengal and Assam. This leaves the normal area of Bengal for 1905-6 

 under cane as 421,600 acres, and for 1906-7, 423,500 acres, with a yield 

 of 419,300 tons. 



The most recent accounts of cultivation are by Mukerji and Roy. Several 

 varieties of cane are cultivated throughout the province. According to Roy, ex- 

 periments have been made, for some years past, on the Bardwan Farm with four of 



941 



Fwt. 

 Whit* Anu. 



tion. 



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