April, 1912.] 



325 



Edible Products. 



parts, more particularly the tropical 

 parts of India, the varieties already 

 grown are of a high quality. 



This is the line of investigation adopt- 

 ed by Mr. Clarke, Agricultural Chemist, 

 United Provinces, and is one of the 

 most important that can be followed. 



Another means of increasing the out- 

 turn of sugar per acre is by liberal manur- 

 ing. It is unnecessary to say that the crop 

 responds to liberal manuring. It is not, 

 however, the case that the cane land is 

 not manured in India. Probably no 

 crop is treated more liberally than is 

 the sugar-cane crop in respect of good 

 cultivation and manure. In some parts, 

 notably the Deccan districts, very liberal 

 quantities of manure are used, and it is 

 here that the outturn is very high. In 

 most parts, especially the United Pro- 

 vinces and the Punjab, the quantity of 

 manure employed is certainly small. In 

 fact in this respect the crop suffers like 

 all others in India. At the same time it 

 would be a mistake to suppose that by 

 liberal manuring the outturn can be " 

 increased one hundred per cent. Some 

 experiments were made at the Cawnpore 

 farm between the years 1897 and 1903 

 with the object of trying to obtain there 

 as large outturns as are commonly ob- 

 tained in the Deccan. These showed 

 chat the heaviest crops raised were not 

 one-half as large as those obtained in 

 the Deccan, and moreover some of the 

 cane, more especially the thin " Ukhs," 

 suffered depreciation in quality. Moder- 

 ate allowances of manure would no 

 doubt be of advantage, but to employ 

 the large quantities which are used in 

 Southern India would probably do harm. 



Passing from these considerations re- 

 garding the increased yield of cane in 

 areas already under the crop, to the 

 question of a possible extension of area, 

 we meet with two facts. The one is that, 

 despite the constant increase of total 

 cultivated area large increase of imports, 

 and increased price of gur, there has 

 been a contraction of area under sugar- 

 cane, The three five-year averages 

 which I have quoted indicate a contrac- 

 tion of some 400,000 acres in fifteen years, 



Statistics are perhaps not altogether 

 reliable in such cases. For instance, the 

 contraction in the United Provinces in 

 1910-11 in comparison with the previous 

 five years is some 200,000 acres, but so 

 recently as 1907-08 this Province grew 

 the largest area of the last twenty years. 

 On the other hand, the Punjab crop of 

 1910-11 was one-third greater (more than 

 100,000 acres) than the last five years' aver- 

 age, but the latter included two crops 

 very much below the average. At the 

 same time there is, I know, a general 

 feeling of anxiety in regard to the 

 United Provinces crop, for if it is not 

 contracting, it is certainly not expand- 

 ing. In Bengal, too, which includes the 

 second largest area, the answer is even 

 more definite, It seems then unreason- 

 able to hope for any large expansion in 

 this part of India. Other crops pay the 

 cultivator better. 



One of the most curious facts in rela- 

 tion to India's sugar-cane area is that 

 it is nearly entirely situated outside 

 the tropics. How comes it that the 

 country which produces more sugar than 

 any other should grow the crop in the 

 more temperate parts, whilst nearly all 

 the rest of the world's cane is grown in 

 the tropics ? It is certainly not because 

 the outturn is large. As already demon- 

 strated, this is far below the tropical 

 average. The explanation is probably 

 two-fold. Firstly, the Indo-Gangetic 

 alluvium is a soil which possesses an un- 

 usual fertility ; a fertility probably 

 largely due to its water-holding capacity. 

 A crop can exist in it through the hot 

 weather when it would fail in most soils, 

 Secondly, and probably principally, the 

 facilities for cheap irrigation have been 

 greater in the United Provinces than in 

 other parts. The canal-irrigated area 

 has always been large, and where depend- 

 ence has been on wells, the sub-soil 

 water is near the surface. There is also 

 some support to this explanation in the 

 fact that the Punjab is the only pro- 

 vince in whieh a distinct increase of 

 area under cane has occurred in recent 

 times, and this is the province which has 

 had a large increase of canal irrigation. 

 But is it not a fundamental mistake for 



