july — sept. 1857.] Aska Sugar Factory, 



the whole District of Ganjam, yielding, as it will, a profit far ex- 

 ceeding that from any of its other products. 



The Aska factory has been raised to its present state of perfec- 

 tion by the most indefatigable energy, through many years of diffi- 

 culty and loss. It is now in very high order and capable of manu- 

 facturing more than 12,000 tons annually, a very much greater 

 quantity of sugar than the District yields at present, and the diffi- 

 culty it has now to contend against, is the deficiency of supply. If 

 my information is correct, the whole extent of land cultivated with 

 sugar in the District is between 3 and 4,000 acres, which with a 

 fair allowance for loss, occasioned by insufficient means of irriga- 

 tion, floods, and other accidents, does not yield more than 4,50,000 

 pots of Goor ; sufficient for the manufacture of about 4,500 tons of 

 the fine yellow sugar exported. 



The Aska works have not the command even of this supply ; 

 there is not only a considerable home consumption, but there is a 

 great demand for sugar in the south of Orissa and in Nagpore 

 which leads to an active competition in the purchase and although 

 the price has been raised lately, and the quantity brought into the 

 factory at the time I was there varied from 4,000 to 5,000 Rupees 

 worth daily, there is still a fear, lest the quantity should be too 

 small to make the work pay a fair profit for the season's working. 

 The lowest quantity of sugar that should be turned out from these 

 works should be 3,000 tons a year ; which with the present low 

 farming would be produced on 4,000 acres of land, but with the 

 greater capacity of the Aska Machinery and the native demand for 

 consumption, and export by land, we have evidently a market 

 which can only be supplied by the Government giving every en- 

 couragement to the growth. 



It would answer well enough for Europeans to take up the cul- 

 tivation of sugar, as the profit from a manageable area would be 

 sufficient inducement, In this respect it differs from the cultiva- 

 tion of grains and seeds and from cotton also which are produced 

 in so small quantity from each year that the cost of management 

 would absorb too much of the profit, if an European undertook it. 

 Nor has sugar the great disadvantage of being a precarious crop as 



