Edible Products. 



32 



[January, 1910. 



either as regards the weight of cane 

 grown per acre, or the sugar content 

 per 100 of canes. 



The Indian cultivator at his best is 

 hard to beat, although his methods and 

 implements may appear primitive to 

 western agriculturists. He is quick to 

 adopt improvements in cultivation and 

 seed if he is satisfied that they will 

 increase his profits ; but in the growing 

 of sugar-cane, he is faced with two 

 serious problems. The soil has been ex- 

 hausted by many centuries of conti- 

 nuous cropping, and the supply of suit- 

 able manures at a moderate c ost is very 

 limited. A greater difficulty still is the 

 climate. The annual rainfall, though 

 usually sufficient in quantity, is badly 

 distributed throughout the year, being 

 concentiated into a few months, fol- 

 lowed by many months of extreme 

 dryness. These two causes, however, 

 would not alone be sufficient to account 

 for the indifferent success of large 

 central cane factories; fresh sources of 

 manure can be discovered, and the short 

 period of growth, due to the concen- 

 tration of the rainfall, can be mitigated 

 by carefully thought-out schemes of 

 irrigation. 



The Indian cane factory has against 

 them, on the credit side, the saving in 

 manufacturing losses by a continuous 

 process, and the economy in freight and 

 transit charges by having a ready 

 market at the door. The greatest diffi- 

 culty, however, with which a central 

 cane factory has to contend is the 

 nature of Indian land tenure, by which 

 the country is split up into a multipli- 



city of small holdings, and this seems 

 to be an insuperable one. The effect of 

 this system of cultivation in innumer- 

 able small farms is that concentration 

 of crop round the factory is in most in- 

 stances impossible. The cane is grown 

 in small isolated patches, and in order 

 to feed a large factory, it has to be 

 collected from a very large area radiat- 

 ing many miles from the factory, with 

 ali the consequent heavy cost of hand- 

 ling and carrying entailed in dealing 

 with a commodity so heavy and bulky 

 as raw sugar-cane : this, combined with 

 the inevitable deterioration and loss of 

 sugar by inversion during the period of 

 transit from the fields to the mill, 

 more than counterbalances the benefit 

 gained by the continuous process. It 

 would seem, therefore, that central 

 sugar factories can only be profitably 

 worked, it at all, in canal colonies or 

 large zamindaries where a concentrated 

 area is available under the personal 

 control of the owner or planter. 



If the sugar industry in India is to 

 hold its own against the foreign im- 

 porter, development will have to be 

 along the line of intense cultivation by 

 the grower, to increase the outturn of 

 sucrose per acre, and improvements in 

 the making of raw jaggery or Gul by 

 the villager, preventing the heavy losses 

 by inversion and adulteration entailed 

 by the crude methods at present em- 

 ployed. If this can be done, the Indian 

 refiner will have nothing to fear from 

 foreign competition in India, and may 

 even in time be able to export to other 

 markets, if not barred by piohibitive 

 protective duties. 



TIMBERS. 



STANDARDISATION OF TREE 

 MEASUREMENTS. 



(From the Indian Forester, Vol. XXXV., 

 No. 11, November, 1909.) 

 There is a considerable amount of con- 

 fusion in the matter of the measurement 

 of trees in India and Burma, and it is a 

 matter for regret that definite rules on 

 the subject were not formulated when 

 the Forest Department was started. 

 We wish to draw attention to this most 

 important subject in the hope that 

 definite rules will be drawn up and 

 adopted generally for the future. 



In the first place, there are two 

 systems ordinarily in vogue for the 

 classification of trees ; one by girth 



classes and the other by diameter 

 classes. For the former, classes of 18 

 inch periods are usually adopted, and 

 for the latter, classes of 6 inch periods. 

 Thus for girth classes it is usual to 

 speak of trees measuring less than lb 

 feet iu girth at breast height as V 

 class trees, those above 1£ feet and up to 

 3 feet as IV class ; those above 3 feet and 

 up to 4£ feet as III class ; those above 

 4i feet and up to feet as II class, and 

 those above 6 feet in girth as I class. 

 It is equally common, when reference is 

 made to trees classified by diameter 

 measurements, to speak of trees up to 

 6 inches in diameter at breast height as 

 V class trees, trees above 6 inches and 

 up to 1 foot in diameter as IV class, trees 

 above 1 foot and up to 1£ feet as III 



