THE MAN UF ACT ATE OF DATE SUGAR. 



Imports, lbs. Exports, lbs. 



1852 2,113,186 783,401 



1853 1,868,120 1,107,131 



1854 2,535,860 900,270 



1855 3,217,217 1,606,321 



1856 576,824 1,334,451 



1857 475,093 1,407,400 



1858 320,723 756,802 



1859 3,160,368 2,335,936 



Formerly we used to receive large quantities from Spain ; thus, in 1853, 

 l,481,7031bs. came in from Spain, and 2,451,483lbs. in 1854. A good 

 deal of quicksilver is shipped to France, Russia, the East Indies, 

 and Peru. 



ON THE MANUFACTURE OF DATE SUGAR IN BENGAL. 



BY S. H. ROBINSON, OF CALCUTTA. 



Phcenix, the genus to which the Date Palm belongs, comprises nine known 

 species, of which six are indigenous in India, and are distinguished as : 

 1, acaulis ; 2, Ouseleyana ; 3, pedunculata; 4, farinifera ; 5, sylvestris or 

 dactylifera ; 6, paludosa. Of these, No. 4 produces sago of an inferior 

 quality ; and the leaves of all the species furnish materials for mats or 

 thatch for houses. The sugar yielding variety, Phcenix sylvestris, is known 

 as the wild date of Bengal : Phcenix dactylifera is the name given to the 

 true Date Palm of Arabia and Africa ; but as it appears to be undistinguish- 

 able from the Bengal variety, except in size and vigour of growth, there 

 seems little doubt that any apparent difference is due only to superior 

 cultivation and variety of climate or soil ; and it being always a cultivated 

 tree in Bengal, the specific name sylvestris may have been originally given, 

 owing to its inferiority in size to the African or Arabian tree, with which 

 European botanists were more early familiar. 



The Date Palm, when not stunted in its growth by the extraction of its 

 juice for sugar, is a very handsome tree, rising in Bengal from thirty to 

 forty feet in height, with a dense crown of leaves spreading in a hemi- 

 spherical form from its summit. These leaves are from ten to fifteen feet 

 long, and composed of numerous leaflets or pinnules about eighteen inches 

 long. The trunk is rough, from the adherence of the bases of the falling 

 leaves : this serves to distinguish it at a glance from the smooth-trunked 

 cocoa-nut palm, which in its leaves only it resembles. Like all of the 

 Phamix genus the trees are dioecious, and the fruit hangs in dense bunches 

 from the centre of the crown of the female tree ; it flowers about April or 

 May, and the fruit ripens in July or August ; the latter is, however, of a 



