THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON. 353 



morning the juice collected in a pot hanging beneath the bamboo 

 spoilt is removed, and the heat of the sun causes the exuding 

 juice to ferment over and shut up the pores in the tree. So in the 

 evening the new cut is made, not nearly so deep as the last, but 

 rather a mere paring, and for the second night the juice is allowed 

 to run. This juice is termed do-kat and is not quite so abundant 

 or so good as the jiran. The third night no new cutting is made, 

 but the exuding surface is merely made quite clean, and the juice 

 which then runs is called jarra. It is still less abundant and less 

 rich than the do-kat, and towards the end of the season, when it is 

 getting hot, it is unfit even for sugar manufacture, the gur 

 (molasses) made from it being sold simply as " droppings." These 

 three nights are the periods of activity in the tree, and after these 

 three it is allowed to remain for three nights at rest, when the 

 same process again begins. Of course, every tree in the same grove 

 does not run in the same cycle, some are at their first, some 

 at their second night, and so on ; and thus the owner is always 

 busy. 



" Since every sixth day a new cut is made over the previous one, 

 it follows that the tree gets more and more hewed into as the 

 season progresses, and towards the end of the season the exuding 

 surface may be, and often is, as much as four inches below the 

 surface above and below. The cuts are during the whole of one 

 season made about the same place, but in alternate seasons alter- 

 nate sides of the tree are used for the tapping ; and as each 

 season's cutting is thus above the previous season's and on the 

 opposite side, the stem of the tree has a curious zigzag appearance. 

 The age of a tree can of course be at once counted up by 

 enumerating the notches and adding six or seven, the number of 

 years passed before the first year's notch. I have counted more 

 than forty- notches on a tree, but one rarely sees them so old as 

 that and when they are forty-six years old they are worth little as 

 produce bearing trees. It is somewhat remarkable that the notches 

 are almost always on the east and west sides of the tree and very 

 rarely on the north and south sides ; also, the first notch appears 

 to be made in by far the majority of instances on the east 

 side. 



