328 



DATE SUGAR INDUSTRY IN BENGAL. 



The tables shew that throughout the night there is a regular and 

 rapid fall in the amount of cane-sugar in the juice. The reducing 

 sugar has not shewn a corresponding increase. In fact in trees A, 

 B, C and D yielding jiran juice, the reducing sugar has tended to 

 decrease in proportion with the reduction of cane-sugar. In trees 

 5 and 6 yielding dokat juice, the amount of reducing sugar has in- 

 creased to some extent with the decreasing content of cane-sugar. 



It thus seems that the decrease in quality of the juice through- 

 out the night is not entirely due to inversion, but the juice actually 

 gets less and less concentrated. 



In January and February 1912 the experiment was repeated 

 on a single tree. This tree was in an isolated position being in an 

 open space a good half mile from any other trees tapped for juice. 



The only other differences between this and the above ex- 

 periments were that in this case the juice was collected in an ena- 

 melled pot and further the tree had only been tapped on two or three 

 occasions this season. 



The cut surface was very clean in this case, and as will be seen 

 a remarkably good juice was obtained. On the 17th and 18th 

 January the juice collected contained only the merest trace of 

 invert sugar certainly less than 0'05%. 



This experiment does not show the same steady decline in 

 richness and quality of the juice as the former experiments did. 



