SUGAR 123 



Northern India. They are sweet and pleasant for chew- 

 ing", but the proportion of glucose remains high to the 

 end. And, considering the disadvantages under which 

 even the local canes labour, we are justified, I think, in 

 asserting that the North of India is hardly a suitable 

 climate for the growth of the sugar-cane at all. The 

 ideal climate for sugar-cane is moist, steamy, and, as has 

 been pointed out by someone, generally unfit for the 

 white man to live in. 



In view of these adverse conditions, the question 

 naturally arises: "How is it that sugar-cane is grown 

 to such an enormous extent in Northern India? " This 

 question is not very easy to answer. In the first place, 

 jaggery, or gur, as it is termed in North India, is a 

 necessary food, and although sugar can now be brought 

 into the country easily and cheaply, this has not been so 

 always. The sugar-cane has thus become an established 

 crop which it would take many years to eradicate, if one 

 were desirous to do so. In the next place, the cultivation 

 as carried on in North India is extremely simple and 

 inexpensive. While it is not unusual for 10 or even 

 20 to be spent on an acre in Madras, many of the fields 

 in North India are planted, reaped, and the produce made 

 into gur for 3 to 4; and this figure does not indicate 

 capital locked up, but largely represents the labour of 

 the family and their cattle at a time when they would 

 not otherwise be employed. Sugar-cane in North India 

 is rarely manured. At first sight this would appear to 

 be a direction in which improvement might easily be 

 introduced, but a little thought will show that any 

 attempt to apply the heavy nitrogenous manuring usual 

 in other places would probably prevent the canes from 

 ripening at all in the limited time at their disposal. This 

 fact also sharply limits the possibility of introducing such 

 canes as require this treatment for their growth and 

 maturing. Another inducement to the cultivator of 

 North India to grow this crop is undoubtedly the fact 

 that sugar-cane is almost universally recognized as a crop 

 on which money can be raised on loan. In a way this 

 seriously interferes with good cultivation, because, once 

 the loan is secured, it is obviously not to the advantage 



