f 377 3 



boiling, and this every raiyat does for himself, and usually 

 within the limits of the grove. Without boiling, the juice 

 speedily ferments and becomes useless ; but once boiled 

 down into gur, it may be kept for very long periods. The 

 juice is therefore boiled at once in large pots placed on a 

 perforated dome, beneath which a strong woodfire is kept 

 burning, the pared leaves of the trees being used among other 

 fuel. The juice, which was at first brilliant and limpid, 

 becomes now a dark brown half viscid half solid mass, which 

 is called gur (molasses), and when it is still warm, it is easily 

 poured from the boiling pan into the earthen pots (small 

 gharras) in which it is ordinarily kept. 



563. " As it takes from 7 to 10 seers of juice to produce 

 one seer of gur or molasses, we can calculate the amount of 

 gur which one ordinarily good tree can produce in a season. 

 We may count four and a half months for the tapping season, 

 or about 67 tapping nights. These at 5 seers each produce 

 345 seers of juice, which will give about 40 seers, or i mnd. of 

 gur. A bigha of grove containing 100 trees will therefore 

 produce Rs.2OO to Rs. 225 worth of gur if all the trees are 

 in good bearing. 



564. " It is not all sorts of pottery which will bear the 

 continuous hard firing required for boiling down the juice 

 and some potters have obtained a special reputation of the 

 excellence of their wares in this respect. The whole of the 

 region about Chaugachha and Kotchandpur is supplied prin- 

 cipally from a village, Bagdanga, a little west of Jessore, 

 where the clay seems to be of an unusually good quality. 

 The southern part of the district, again, is supplied chiefly 

 from Alaipur, a bazar near Khulna. 



565. U A raiyat, after boiling down his juice into gur> 

 does not ordinarily do more ; it is then sold to the refiners, 

 and by them manufactured into sugar. Near Keshabpur, 

 however, a large number of raiyats manufacture their own 

 sugar and sell it to the exporters only after manufacture, 



VV 



