Oils and Fats- 



320 



[April 1908- 



is not so great. Having selected a piece 

 of highland of a light, sandy nature on 

 which water will not stagnate during 

 the monsoons, all the growth should be 

 cut and burnt and the land should then 

 be well ploughed once in the month of 

 April. The field should then be dressed 

 with refuse, cow-dung, silt from creeks 

 or tanks, and after the first showers in 

 May it must be ploughed twice and all 

 clods well broken by means of a kyan, 

 an implement used in husbandry to ievel 

 the ground; then harrowed until the 

 field is well levelled and broken to a fine 

 tilth. Then a five-teeth harrow is taken, 

 two-teeth knocked off leaving only the 

 end and middle ones, and the harrow 

 run straight across the field. Where, 

 however, the field slopes the furrows 

 are run in the direction of the slopes so 

 that the water may easily drain off. 

 The field is now marked in furrows 

 about a cubit apart and is ready for the 

 reception of seeds. As soon as the rains 

 set in the seeds should be dibbled in the 

 furrows as near as possible, say about 

 one cubit apart, and covered lightly 

 with a little earth. Care should be exer- 

 cised in selecting only the best seeds ; 

 seeds of a bright, brownish black colour 

 and well formed are the best, and 

 if the eight ribbed kind is procurable 

 this should be selected for sowing 

 as its yield is much higher. Nothing 

 further is needed till the plants are 

 about six inches high when weeding 

 should be done with a hoe. All blanks 

 should now be filled up, and plants that 

 are too close together should be pulled 

 up in order to make the yield even. 

 Beyond keeping the ground well weeded 

 no further operations are needed till the 

 crop is gathered. As soon as the pods 

 begin to turn yellow the crop should 

 be cut, as once the pods dry the 

 seeds will drop and portion of the 

 crop is lost. The plants are cut with 

 about a cubit of the stalk and heaped 

 upon a mat under shelter for two or 

 three days until they are slightly fer- 

 mented when they are put out in the 

 sun, pods upwards, against a bamboo 

 raised a foot from the ground, and as 

 the pods dry and open the seeds should 

 be shaken into a basket. This operation 

 is repeated till all the seeds have been 

 removed from the pods and the seeds 

 are gathered, dried from the sun for a 

 day and well cleaned. Tiie quantity of 

 seeds required to sow an acre of land is 

 three viss, while the yield is from 20 to 

 30 baskets, i.e., from 80 to 120 fold, in the 

 proportion to the care and attention 

 bestowed on the cultivation. Well-grown 

 black seeds fetch Rs. 4 a basket, and as 

 one pair of bullocks is sufficient to work 

 and cultivate the paddy-fields besides, 

 for paddy „ is sown after ,the sesamum 



is in the ground, a net profit of about 

 Rs. 100 per acre can easily be calculated 

 on. 



To show the importance of the crop to 

 this province the following statistics 

 showing the acreage under sesamum 

 during the six agricultural years ended 

 1906-07 may be quoted : 1901-02, 825,888 

 acres ; 1902-03, 908,505 acres ; 1903-94, 

 993,679 acres ; 1904-05, 1,036,678 acres ; 

 1905-06, 929,122 acres ; 1906-07, 950.531 acres. 

 There are two distinct sesamum har- 

 vests, that of the early sesamum or 

 huangyin or hnanange and that of* the 

 late sesamum or hnangyi, the former 

 being more generally grown. The latter 

 is sown towards the close of the rainy 

 season after the paddy harvest and 

 reaped during the cold weather, and is 

 hence practically only about 2£ months 

 in the ground, while the hnyangyiu, 

 which is gathered during the rains, is a 

 six-month plant. The plants, when 

 mature, range in height from two to 

 five feet and bear white flowers. Sesa- 

 mum is cultivated for the sake of the 

 seed which yields an oil much affected 

 by the Burmese in cookiug. Oil presses 

 on the pestle-and-mortar principle, 

 usually worked by bullocks, are common 

 in most villages where sesamum is 

 grown. The yield of oil varies greatly 

 according to the kind of crop sown. In 

 Tharrawaddy a basket of seeds of the 

 hill variety when expressed produces 

 six viss of oil against five viss produced 

 by the variety grown in the plains, 

 while in Tavoy a basket of hnangyi, 

 grown in taungyas yields 1\ viss of oil 

 compared with a yield of 9 viss from 

 hnanage, but the average yield of a 

 basket of hnangyi and hnangyin may be 

 taken five viss and four viss respect- 

 ively. Calculating on this basis and 

 taking the average yield per acre as 25 

 baskets, the quantity of oil that would 

 be expressed from the produce of 950,000 

 acres works out to about 48,374,720 

 gallons. It is curious, notwithstanding 

 this fact, that quantities of both seed 

 and oil are annually imported into 

 Burma, which greatly exceed in amount 

 the exports.— Indian Agriculturist, Vol. 

 XXXI1L, No. 1, Jan. 1, 1908. 



SUGAR AS FOOD. 



The London Lancet, a well-known 

 medical authority, says : " It seems in- 

 conceivable that the bountifulness with 

 which the world is supplied with sugar 

 should mean anything else than that it 

 is designed for human food. Sugar is 

 one of the most powerful foods which we 

 possess as it is the cheapest, or at any 

 rate one of the cheapest. In muscular 



