SUGAR. 



181 



tensity of light and heat causes the sap to be very materially defi- 

 cient in saccharine matter. But, on the other hand, 



2. A very dry season, immediately after the sets are planted, 

 though the want of rain may in some degree be supplied by arti- 

 ficial means, causes the produce to be but indifferent. These 

 inconveniences are of a general nature, and irremediable. 



3. Animals. In India not only the incursions of domesticated 

 animals, but in some districts of the wild elephant, buffalo, and 

 hog, are frequent sources of injury. Almost every plantation is liable, 

 also, to the attack of the jackal, and rats are destructive enemies. 



4. White Ants. The sets of the sugar cane have to be carefully 

 watched, to nreserve them from the white ant (Termes fatalis) , 

 to attacks from which they are liable until they have begun to 

 shoot. To prevent this injury, the following mixture has been 

 recommended : 



Asafootida (hing), 8 cbittacks. 



Mustard- seed cake (sursum lei khalli), 8 seers. 



Putrid fish, 4 seers. 



Bruised butch root, 2 seers ; or muddur, 2 seers. 



Mix the above together in a large vessel, with water sufficient to 

 make them into the thickness of curds ; then steep each slip of cane 

 in it for half an hour after planting ; and, lastly, water the lines 

 three times previous to setting the cane, by irrigating the water-, 

 course with water mixed up with bruised butch root, or muddur if 

 the former be not procurable.* 



A very effectual mode of destroying the white ant, is by mixing 

 a small quantity of arsenic with a few ounces of burned bread, 

 pulverised flour, or oatmeal, moistened with molasses, and placing 

 pieces of the dough thus made, each about the size of a turkey's 

 egg, on a flat board, and covered over with a wooden bowl, in 

 several -parts of the plantation. The ants soon take possession of 

 these, and the poison has a continuous effect, for the ants which 

 die are eaten by those which succeed theni.f They are said to be 

 driven from a soil by frequently hoeing it: They are found to pre- 

 vail most upon newly broken-up lands. 



In Central India, the penetration of the white ants into the in- 

 terior of the sets, and the consequent destruction of the latter, is 

 prevented by dipping each end into buttermilk, asafoetida, and 

 powdered mustard-seed, mixed into a thick compound. 



5. Storms. Unless they are very violent, Dr. Roxburgh ob- 

 serves, " they do no great harm, because the canes are propped. 

 However, if they are once laid down, which sometimes happens, 

 they become branchy and thin, yielding a poor, watery juice." 



* That the above application would be beneficial, is rendered still more 

 worthy of credit from the following experience : In the Dhoon, the white 

 aut is a most formidable enemy to the sugar planter, owing to the de- 

 struction it causes to the sets when first planted. Mr. G. H. Smith says, 

 that there is a wood very common there, called by the natives Butch, through 

 which, they say, if the irrigating- waters are passed in its progress to the 

 beds, the white ants are driven away. (Trans. Agri-IIort. Soc. of India, v. 65.) 

 f FHzmaurice on the Culture of the Sugar Cane, 



