Sugarcane

“ The rice straw that stands upon the field is burnt down, and sweet potatoes, some maize, a score or more of sugarcane plants, a patch of taro, and sometimes a few banana plants are put in at intervals after the harvest entertainments. The time selected for the planting of sugarcane and bananas is around noon. It is thought that, if planted then, they will grow taller and bigger than if planted at any other hour. ”

“ The land has become exhausted, and will no longer bear two crops, the cattle have died, and the fever-stricken population can no longer labour as they were wont. The decrease is most marked, however, in sugarcane, which has fallen from 41,000 to 15,000 acres. Sugarcane in Kheri is principally grown in Muhamdi, Haidara bad, the northern part of Paila, and Kheri parganas. In the last three defective drain- age and heavy rains often seriously injure the crop.. The edible sugarcane is not grown, except in the gardens of the wealthy. ”

“ It is sufficient to cut down and burn the brush and scratch the soil and sow with any seed, to recover returns of a hundred for one. Sugarcane, vines, maize, cocoa, coffee, and a host of products can be raised. The sugarcane, once planted, yields perpetual, some existing plantations being more than a hundred years old. ”

“ Sugar-cane and Banana cultivation.—Sugar-cane cultivation, which is a profitable though simple husbandry, is another promising industry suitable for the aborigines. But, it cannot be encouraged in localities too far from the sugar factories, upon whose demand it entirely depends. Where sugarcane is in good demand, the savages are very eager to grow it. ”

“ The cultivation of sugarcane is ordinarily commenced and completed with the usurious aid of native bankers, and a single bad season places the cultivator in pecu- niary difficulties from which he finds it most difficult to extricate himself for years. ”

“ Sugar is divided into the following classes:—Refined sugar, white clayed, brown clayed, brown raw, and molasses. The sugarcane grows to the height of six, twelve, or even sometimes twenty feet. It is propagated from cuttings, requires much hoeing and weeding, giving employment to thousands upon thousands of slaves in the slave countries, and attains maturity in twelve or thirteen months. ”

“ Area for harvest of sugarcane for sugar and seed during the 2007 crop year is forecast at 891,700 acres, down 1 percent from 2006. Area for harvest in Louisiana is down 5,000 acres from last year and Florida growers expect to harvest 4,000 fewer acres than last year. In Louisiana, crop conditions for sugarcane have remained mostly fair to good, except in early April, when a late freeze occurred. For the week ending June 17, Louisiana's sugarcane crop condition was rated at 19 percent excellent, 45 percent good, 33 percent fair, and 3 percent poor. ”

“ As in the case of cotton, sugar can be and is grown in the great majority of Brazilian states, from the mouth of the Amazon down to the Laguna Mirim, but there are areas, chiefly on the central littoral, where 239soil and climate are so well suited to sugarcane that production from these regions is able to compete with other world offerings. ”

“ Sugarcane is grown bj' all castes, except the Bhale Sultans in Deogaon. About 2,500 local bighas are occupied by this crop. These produce 25,000 local maunds of raw sugar Cgur^, which is sent to Rudauli, Fyzabad, and Sultanpur. Fine sugar (chini) is not made in the pargana. Cotton is grown to a very limited extent, and yields only 5 or 6 seers to a local bigha. Opium is little cultivated, about 400 bighas only, which yield about 8 seers a local bigha, are devoted to it, the cultivators being Muraos and Brahmans. There are no four-bullock carts in the pargana. ”

“ To these objects of commerce may be added, the now important article of sugar, which might be raised to a great amount, in various districts of Africa, as the climate is propitious to the growth of the sugarcane, which, under proper cultivation, might be raised in great perfection.
The lands upon the banks of the Gambia, the Rio Noonez, the Rio Grande, the Rio Pongo, in the Mandingo country, Sierra Leone, Sherbro, &c. are universally allowed to be extremely fertile in many places, and abundant in vegetation and population. ”

“ Where cultivation commences the soil is a rather light dumat, becoming at the south-west comer even bhúr; it rapidly improves, and about half a mile from the edge of the cultivation is of the very highest quality, yielding every crop and very high rents. It is nearly level. Where there is a slight depression the matiár yields fine crops of rice, and the dumat magnificent sugarcane, but the centre is swampy in places. ”

“ In the semi-tropical Province of Jaen, in north Peru, sugarcane grows luxuriantly. Lack of labor and transportation, however, renders it difficult to make full use of the fertility
The sugar that is not turned into aguardiente, or native whiskey, is boiled down in the trapiche into crude brown blocks, variously known as panela, chancaca, rapadura, empanisado, papelón, etc., weighed and wrapped in banana-leaves, selling at about 5 cents for 3 pounds
221Life was dismal at best in Ayavaca. The cold and clammy downpour continued unabated. ”

“ He always found the cultivation in sugar-cane villages to be extremely careful and laborious. Ancient stone mills are sometimes found in black soil country, and it is difficult to understand how sugarcane can ever have been grown there. The author was mistaken in supposing that the indigenous pattern of mill is superior to a good roller mill. The indigenous mill has been completely superseded in most parts of the Panjāb, United Provinces, and Bihār, by the roller mill patented by Messrs. ”

“ It is an upland situated between two mountains, and is covered with grass, like Castilla. There is abundance of water and trees; and there are many valleys and broad, pleasant plains. It has many deer and carabaos, or buffaloes. Sugarcane is grown, and produces abundantly, and it attains a much larger growth than in other regions; and even, where moisture is obtained, many trees grow. There are many bare mountains, thought to be composed of minerals. The highest mountains are very rugged. ”

“ These consist chiefly of jagōng (maize) , vegetables and sugarcane. This last, if grown on a large scale, is planted in gardens to make sugar and molasses (meulisan) . During the four months while the "land is open" the cane has not time to reach its full growth. Thus canes planted in the rice-fields are cut, in whatever stage of growth they may be, just before the ploughing time, and consumed in their unmanufactured state.
Ploughing.Keunòngs 15, 13 and 11, but especially the last two, are the time for the ploughing (meuʾuë) of the rice-fields. ”

“ The leaves of the cane are never sold. I have given the cost of the most expensive cultivation of sugarcane, which necessitates the land being fallowed for a year previous to sowing; hence I have charged two years' rent. "Wheat seed, forty seers.....Ploughing eight times, two pairs of bullocks at 6 annas; manure, two carts of four bullocks for two days at 12 annas a 23 17 KHE cart, and six men for two days at 1 anna 6 pie; weeding once, twenty men; watering three times by well; one pair of hullocks irrigates an acre in eight days at 6 annas, two men at 1 anna 6 píe ”

“ Sugar-cane is propagated, not from seed, but from the top joints of the old plant, and is planted at the commencement of the rainy season in September. It is ready for cutting in a year; it yields again every ten months, improving in quality and size every crop for a number of years, according to the quality of the land and the care bestowed upon it. It will continue to spring up from the roots for fifty or sixty years, with one or two light workings with hoes in the year. The field is set fire to after every cutting, to burn up the rubbage, weeds, &c. ”

“ The people showed us, as we passed, six kinds of sugar-cane, and told us that they had many more, one soil agreeing best with one kind, another with another. The main fault in the cultivation of sugar-cane is here, as in every other part of India that I have seen, the want of room and the disregard of cleanliness. They crowd the cane too much, and never remove the decayed leaves, and sufficient air is never admitted. ”

“ The small flowers or spikelets are borne in pairs on the ultimate branches of a much branched feathery plume-like terminal grey inflorescence, 2 ft. or more long. Production of flowers is uncertain under cultivation and seed is formed very rarely. The plant is readily propagated by cuttings, a piece of the stem bearing buds at its nodes will root rapidly when placed in sufficiently moist ground. The sugar-cane is widely cultivated in the tropics and some sub-tropical countries, but is not known as a wild plant. ”

“ Sugar-cane (Saccharum officinaram) , a species of Gramineæ, occurs to some extent without the tropics, having been cultivated centuries ago in Europe, as at present scantily in the South of Spain. But it properly belongs to the torrid zone, and has for its principal districts, the Southern United States, the West Indies, Venezuela, Brazil, the Mauritius, British India, China, the Sunda and Philippine Islands. The plant was found wild in several parts of America on the discovery of that continent, and occurs in a wild state on many of the islands of the Pacific. ”

“ The fertility and productiveness of the sugar-cane is immense, second only to the sago-palms. “The first sugar-canes planted with care on a virgin soil, yield a harvest during twenty to twenty-five years, after which they must be replanted every three years.” In the island of Cuba, instances are known of a sugar-plantation existing for forty-five years. To procure new plants, the tedious process of sowing seeds is not necessary. ”

“ From Trinidad, an island contiguous to the continent, the new sugar-cane of the South Sea passed to the neighbouring coasts of Caracas. Here it has become of greater importance than the bread-fruit tree, which will probably never supersede so valuable and nutritious a plant as the banana. The Tahitian sugar-cane is more succulent than the common species, which is generally supposed to be a native of Eastern Asia. It likewise yields one-third more sugar on the same area than the Caña criolla, which is thinner in its stalk, and more crowded with joints. ”

“ The quantity of sugar produced in Spain, however, is small, the crop of 1914-15 amounting to less than 8000 tons.
Sugar cane thrives best in a moist, warm climate, with moderate intervals of dry, hot weather, and plenty of water for irrigation. It requires marly soil, free from saline ingredients. As a rule, it is raised on the lowlands, where the temperature is highest and where it is easy to bring water for irrigation. In Hawaii it takes eighteen months to ripen, and “tasseling” occurs about thirty days before it is ready to be cut. ”

“ The cultivation of sugar-cane seems to have spread very rapidly. It early found its way to Persia and Arabia, and then from Arabia as a center has spread to the Mediterranean districts, Sicily, Cyprus, Spain and Italy. It found its way to Santo Domingo as early as 1494 and to Brazil early in the sixteenth century. At the present time cane is grown in nearly all tropical and sub-tropical countries, the Southern United States producing more than any other country.
There are many varieties recognized by cultivators, differing in color, texture and other minor characteristics. ”

“ By degrees, however, the culture of the cane fell, into decay, whether through disease of the plant or its cheaper production in the Brazils and West Indies is not known, so that in the year 1840, only two sugar factories were at work in the whole island; and even these only produce molasses and rum, of which the latter, in the year 1856, amounted to 1500 pipes. The cultivation of the sugar-cane, however, has increased since the vine disease has fallen so heavily on the landowner. ”

“ I have not seen a sheep or a goat since I arrived, nor a cow or bullock grazing. The milch cows are all stall-fed. The bullocks go straight from shipboard to the butcher, and the horses are never turned out. This is partly because there is no pasturage, the land being used entirely for sugar-cane or else left in small patches of jungle. As might be expected from such a volcanic-looking island, the surface of the ground is extremely stony, but the sugar-cane loves the light soil, and I am told that it thrives best where the stones are just turned aside and a furrow left for the cane-plant. ”

“ The sugar-cane allows of no shade. Therefore the groves and avenues must fall. To make its culture profitable, it must be raised in the largest possible quantities that the extent of land will permit. To attempt the raising of fruit, or of the ornamental woods, is bad economy for the sugar planter. Most of the fruits, especially the orange, which is the chief export, ripen in the midst of the sugar season, and no hands can be spared to attend to them. The sugar planter often buys the fruits he needs for daily use and for making preserves, from the neighboring cafetals. ”

“ At Kandy as well as in the vicinity of Point de Galle, frequent attempts have been made to establish sugar plantations, but the soil or the climate, or both, proved to be unfavorable to the growth of the cane. Natives, here and elsewhere, raise a few hills of it about their cabins, which they chew for its sweetness, when the stalk becomes sufficiently ripe; it is especially the delight of children, under this condition. With the aid of proper fertilizers there would seem to be no good reason why sugar-cane could not be profitably grown in Ceylon. ”