Panjab. 



N.W. 



Frontier 



Province. 



ACCHARUM 



GROWN FOR EATFNG PURPOSES OFPICINAHUH 



. CultUtt 



so! the cost of . , m tt.- v,. 



" Second, th< common, -,1 in.-tli.,,i. 



nn.i Fuller, /'/> at i 



land. \,.- 

 '(/ Bihar Imli.j,, f 



Journ.Jn<l.. P'nT. .i.. pt. i.,l."> L'l ; / / ;>'>re.] 



Panjab and North-West Frontier r ,rett 



for tin- \e;ir I'.").". ;. the area in .ir-cane i, 



s 172,700 acres, n i.-ld ss..- vious T1-M . 



jear -A K < .md 2.'5tf..'H)O tons of ,/nr, or about tlin-e-fourth- 



ton to ':;. acre. It has to' be borne in mind, however, that in m.inv tracts, 

 il!v with Considerable Muhannnadan populations, cane is grown 

 v. if not mainly, for eating purpose-. us.-! in the pi 



"/. The more important district areas may be 

 iv, Gurdaspur, which had 51.590 am- 

 pur, 30,672 acres; Jallandhar, 27,797 a< 



Hoshiarpur, 24.021 acres; Gujranwala, 20,492 acres; Karnal, 1 

 acres; Delhi, 17,575 acres ; Amritsar, 1(5, r,i , i "*,870 



acres, etc. The area in the North-W> >t Front i -r in the same year was 

 26,003 acres, the great bulk of which is grown in Peshav. 

 the year in question ; Bannu, 6,387 acres ; and Hazara, 1,09 . The 



area and production in 1906-7 were 257,600 acres and 212,800 tons in the 

 Panjab : 28,600 acres and 32,800 tons in the North- W 



The following information applies particularly t<> Sialkot, one of the most 

 important sugar districts of the Panjab ,and i abstracted from the account given 

 by Dunlop-Smith (Ooz. Sialkot, 1894-5, 114-0). The land which is to bear the 

 crop must be frequently ploughed. In Sialkot the preparatory ploughing* vary 

 from ten to twenty, and the ground is always manured. Cane is never grown 

 from seed. Each year, when a field is reaped, about 5 per cent, of the stalks are 

 carefully selected and cut into lengths of about 9 inches and buried in a pit. 

 They are ready for planting in about three months. When taken out of the pit 

 they are placed lengthwise in the ground and pressed down with the foot. The 

 ground bearing sugar-cane has to be kept moist by steady irrigation when there 

 is no rain. But unirrigated cane is generally superior to that grown on wi-II 

 lands. Planting usually takes place in March. Before the crop ripens, it must 

 be weeded about five times. Cutting begins in December and goes on inter- 

 mittently for about three months. The quality of cane depends very much on 

 the soil which bears it. The best cane is grown on the rich darp soils in Raya. 

 The highly manured fields round the village sites bear a poor class of cane, though 

 the outturn is very large. 



When the cane is cut, the green top* (6g or pdnd) are broken off and the 

 sheaths (chhoi) of the stalks are stripped with a sickle. The stalks are at once 

 carried to the place where the press has been set up. The presses are of two kinds, 

 wooden and iron. The former is a clumsy machine, sunk in a pit. The cane- 

 stalks ore made up in bundles of fifteen to twenty-five and passed through and 

 through the press several times. The juice is received into an earthen iar sunk 

 in the ground. The iron press is much simpler than the wooden, and stands 

 above ground. As soon as possible after extraction, t ; -i poured into a 



large flat iron dish (karah) placed on an earthen oven, and lx>i!,il and stirred for 

 two to two and a half hours till it begins to coagulate. When the mass is ready 

 it is poured into a hole (gand) in the ground, carefully prepared by plastering 

 with clay. The liquid is then stirred for some twenty minutes till it hardens 

 and cools enough to be rolled into balls. [Cf. Ditt. Oaz. Pb. (especially Gujran- 

 waln. Rawalpindi. Shahpur. Montgomery and Multan) ; Kept, on Land Rev, 

 Admin. Pb., 1901, ix., app. B, 111.] 



Central Provinces and Berar. Recent returns of the area ani 

 are not available for these provinces. The totals for 1904-5 were 21,398 



945 60 







. ;. 



: -.-... 



Hinrert. 



ErprMMi 



C. Prov. 

 ATM*. 



