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- 



Ifinnra. 



BACCHARUM 

 RATOONING orFiciNARUM 



Cultivation 



i from the account l,y Dr. K. Stark. A .y *,il, with a light Aatl. 



admixture of hand, i- i.d.l.-. It,,.,-' >,!. U-\..ri.| t h* reach of 



iniin.l.iti. ii. I ,i\,,urite spots are thfi edges uf a umrh or the bank* of a r 

 'I he degree <>>' manuring depends entirely upon th. -niynt'r BMHIM a 



in the vicinity of centres of crowded population are freely manured uiti. 

 .I'in-j niul crushed 1 1 itietard need, both before and after planting with oane t 



other liainl. iii tin- in..rt- rnni! 



"i' the gram and weed* raked out .-i tin- MM! mid burnt. Tlie beet cane i 



raised <>n . , old fallow*. but land from 



pulse, or summer n (iilin) Im* been firm nne* preferred. A aecond 



tie, iml--i- ratoone<l. i-, ne\er taken. but the land is left fit; veral 



years. Waste <>r tallow land is broken up in October, then left till .hum..: 



when ploughing starts and is continued till the i Vprd. TtieHeld 



is then li\ ided mt.> strip-. s to 12 feet wide. by drains ln.-h - inin'ini. .it. 



a diteh siiiToumlm- the field. The cane-sets are invariably tin- top, 



I- i-..!!. the harvest Season to time of planting the\ arc kept in a cool and i 



-pot. pla.'t-d in ft half-upright p"-iti"ii. m ^n.iind \\hii-h haa been turmxl 

 li<n>. the hods of cuttings being covered uith n.e-Htruw or plantain leaves and 

 \\atered it the weather lx> dry. The du\ ..ut, y-nerally i 



the middle of .May. inuBt be preceded l>y KiiHicient rain. In an oHieml pnt.h- 



<i8on of Sowing and Reaping of Crop*, issued by the Reporter on I 

 Products, cane is spoken of as planted from April to June. The layers are placed 

 2 feet apart, in trem lies 3 feet distant, and these run at right angles to the drains 

 that divide the tield. After planting, a little soil, often mixed with cow-dung, w 

 lightly scattered <>\er them. The tield is then weeded and the soil aroun.i 

 young shoots lightly stirred with the spade or hoe, a process which is repeated at 

 short intervals during bright sunny weather throughout May and part of June, 

 and at the same time manure may be applied. A few more weodings are given 

 and the earth from the ridges is heaped about the roots of the canes in the trenches 

 till rid^e and trench are reversed. This goes on till the middle of August, after 

 which work stops for about a month. A final weeding and earthing up is then 

 uiven. in September or October, when the canes are tied together in clumps b\ 

 leaves stripped off the lower parts of the stems. Cane harvest, as a rule, does 

 not begin till the whiter rice has been reaped, that is, till after the 15th of January. 

 The operations of cutting, crushing, boiling, etc.. are carried on simultaneously 

 from this date till the end of March, or even beginning of April. The canes are 

 cut close to the root, the tops lopped off and reserved for layers, and the stalks, 

 stripped of their leaves, are bound in bundles and carried to the mill. From an 

 extensive series of crop experiments, performed from 1883 to 1002, it would 

 appear that the yield of cane to the acre is about 10 tons and tliat it requires 

 about 1T6 tons of cane to afford one ton of <jiir. 



A small proportion of the annual crop is ratooned. If this is done the stripped- 

 off leaves of the previous crop are left lying on the field till April, when they are 

 burnt, and a month later, when the young shoots begin to appear, the crop is 

 hoed and manure added. ' Such a crop is called murha, ami is harvested earlier 

 than the other crop, viz. in the begiiuiing of January. [Cf. Allan. Assam Di*t. 

 1 905 (Cachar, Sylhet, Goalpara, etc.) ; Crop Exper. Repts., Astam.] 



United Provinces. On the average of the five years ending 1904-5. 

 it is manifested that the area under sugar-cane in these provinces amounts I 

 to 49 per cent, of the total under sugar-cane in British India. In 1905-6, 

 the area, according to the Agricultural Statistics, was 1,220,716 acres 

 954,350 in Agra, and 266,366 in Oudh. The yield was returned as 884,000 

 tons, though in 1904-5 it was 1,183,400 tons or, say, one ton to the acre. In 

 Agra the acreage in 1905-6 in the most important districts was as follows : 

 Meerut, 108,954; Gorakhpur, 93,599; Bijnor, 77,763; Azamgarh. 

 69,088; Muzaffarnagar, 56,498; Basti, 55,123; Bareli, 51,135. In 

 Oudh : Fyzabad, 48,157 ; Kheri, 41,091 ; Sitapur, 33,201 ; Barabanki. 

 31,691 ; Gonda, 27,395 ; Sultanpur, 22,580. The Final Memoran'l 

 of the Commercial Intelligence Department for 1906-7 states the area 

 and yield for that year as 1,386,700 acres and 1.2U4.5W tons. 



The races of cane grown in the United Provinces have already been 

 cassified, with reference to their agricultural characters and properties, into 



943 







U. Prov. 



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iUe. 



