t 373 J 



find it recorded that 20,000 mnds. was the annual produce of the 

 sugar cultivation, and that of this about half was exported to 

 Calcutta. In these later years the date-sugar has almost 

 entirely driven away the cane-sugar from the fields as well 

 as from the market. European factories began to be set up in 

 the district, and it was these factories that gave such impulse 

 to the trade. The first sugar-factory in the country was at 

 Dhoba, in Burdwan, a little below Nuddea, and it was erected 

 by a Mr. Blake. When his success began to diminish, he 

 changed the business into that of a company, from which he 

 gradually withdrew. This Dhoba sugar company established 

 a factory at Kotchandpur, in Jessore, getting up English 

 Machinery and afterwards applied the English system to the 

 Dhoba factory also. The history of the English sugar refin- 

 ery is not a record of success. The truth was, that when they 

 gave a great impulse to the sugar cultivation, native merchants 

 stepped in and appropriated all the trade which the factories 

 had given birth to. The methods used by native merchants 

 impart to the sugar all the purity which is required by the 

 consumers. Had the European market remained open, the 

 European factories might have competed with the native with 

 some chance of success. But the duties levied in Europe ap- 

 pear to have been sufficient to prevent the development of 

 the export trade, and the factories established at Cossipore 

 and Bally, near Calcutta, appear, through the more favourable 

 circumstances in which they were placed; to have monopolis- 

 ed the European market in Calcutta. 



556. "The ground chosen for date cultivation is the higher 

 ground, that which is too high for rice to grow well, and the rent 

 paid for such ground is at least three times that for rice land."* 



* High and low land, ate however equally suitable for date cultivation* 

 In fact date-trees should be grown in small hollows where the rain water would 

 collect and play round them, but too much of it would kill them. Planting 

 should be done 3 yds. apart each way, Pits in which they are planted should be 



