388 DATE SUGAR INDUSTRY IK BENGAL. 



and the addition of a small quantity of formalin to the pots daily. 

 Of course one would have to calculate whether the cost of the for- 

 malin so used would be repaid by the extra amount of sugar recover- 

 ed. About 3 c.c. 1 of 10% formalin 2 would be sufficient to wash 

 each cut surface and one c.c. of 10% formalin 2 might be tried in each 

 pot. Taking 100 trees the amount of formalin per season would 

 then work out as follows : 



3 c.c. per week per tree for 13 weeks equals . . . . 3,900 c.c. 



1 c.c. per pot for every juice-yielding night, say 44, equals . . 4,400 c.c. 



TOTAL 8,300 c.c. 10% formalin, 



equals . . 2,100 c.c. roughly 40% formalin, 

 equals . . 4'61bs. formalin roughly 



4'61bs. at 12 As. per Ib. (market price in bulk in India) is equal 

 to 55 annas per 100 trees or about half an anna per tree. Half 

 an anna per tree is but a very small expenditure. 



A 5% increase in yield of sugar per tree would account 

 for it for taking the average yield of gur per tree as 22jlbs. A 5% 

 increase would be about lib. of gur. 



Any increase in yield over 5% resulting from the treatment 

 would therefore be profit and from our preliminary experiments 

 it seemed that by formalin treatment a very appreciable increase 

 in yield of sugar per tree might be obtained. 



VI. SYSTEM OF COLLECTION OF JUICE. 



It has been shewn that much of the sugar is lost by inversion 

 during the night after the juice has flowed from the tree. The dirty 

 state of the earthenware collecting pots must have a good deal to 

 do with the large amount of inversion. Earthenware pots in any 

 case would be difficult to clean, and as a matter of fact the pots are 

 never cleaned from one end of the season to the other, the only treat- 

 ment they receive being that of smoking. It seems to us that it 

 would be much better if cheap metal pails could be substituted for 



1 28 c.c. equals roughly 1 oz. 



2 Dr. Butler, Imperial Mycologist, thinks that probably 1% formalin would be 

 equally effective. If so, then the cost of treating the trees would be very small indeed. 



