18 SUGAR 



cultivated and crushed in stone mills driven by buffaloes, 

 have produced a rough, dirty, nearly black sugar, and 

 the Chinaman has been satisfied. He gets less than 

 half the juice from the cane, and half the sugar from the 

 juice. But Japan means to substitute for this state 

 of things a first-class sugar industry, and has set about 

 it, as usual with the Japanese, in a business-like way. 

 They began by learning their lesson and finding out 

 how sugar is grown and how it is made in the very 

 best factories, whether tropical or European. They 

 then told the people in Formosa how they should grow 

 their canes, what canes they should plant, and what 

 manure they should use. They told them, further, 

 that central factories would be established which would 

 buy the improved canes from the farmers at a much 

 better price than what they got out of their whole 

 process of growing and sugar-making. It took some 

 time to move the naturally conservative ideas of the 

 native producer, but they are succeeding. Factories 

 are being erected and the growers are beginning to fall 

 in with the new ideas. If success comes it means that 

 in a few years Japan will make sugar enough to supply 

 the Japanese consumer with all the sugar he wants ; 

 and as the sugar receives preferential treatment in 

 Japan, and therefore fetches a high price, there will be a 

 great stimulus to Formosan production, and the final 

 result may very likely be that Japan will become an 

 exporter of refined sugar. In 1901-2 Formosan exports 

 to Japan were 46,893 tons; in 1910-11 256,950 tons. 

 The crop in 1916-17 is estimated at 338,997 tons. 



The methods of growing cane sugar vary in different 

 countries. In our West Indian colonies the first planting 

 may give an average yield of thirty tons of canes to the 

 acre. This is called the plant-cane crop. The " stool " 

 left when the canes are cut down will, if permitted, 



