INDIA

To all intents and purposes, India is a continent rather than a country. It is triangular in shape, with its base resting upon the Himalayas and its apex running far out into the ocean. To the east is the bay of Bengal and to the west the Arabian sea. Its length from north to south and its greatest width from east to west are both about 1900 miles. The Indian empire, including Burma, comprises 1,766,000 square miles, with 294,000,000 inhabitants. It extends from 8 degrees to 37 degrees north latitude, which means from the hottest tropical regions to a point well within the temperate zone, so that it would be idle to attempt to describe here the variety of formation and climate.

In this, the birthplace of sugar cane, accurate information regarding the state of the industry is extremely hard to obtain, for various reasons, among which may be mentioned—

First: In certain portions of the empire very indifferent attention is paid to the compilation of reliable statistics concerning production.

Second: The raising of sugar cane is not carried on by large interests, but is divided among a vast number of small farmers, so that it is doubly difficult to secure dependable data concerning the yield and manufacture.

Third: By no means all of the cane that is grown goes to the sugar mills to be ground. Much of it is chewed or eaten in the stalk, and the manufacturing process itself is, in most instances, very primitive. So it is clear that even where the acreage planted to cane is accurately known, it would be a difficult matter to determine the result in sugar.

SUGAR MILL, NAHAN FACTORY, INDIA

CENTRIFUGAL WORKED BY HAND, INDIA

The area devoted to cane varies year by year and runs between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 acres, chiefly in the United Provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, although the northwest provinces, Madras, Bombay, central provinces, the Rajput states, and Burma contribute. As the cane-sugar crop of India is estimated to be between 2,225,000 and 2,500,000 tons, it would appear that the sugar realized per acre is something near one ton on an average, as against five and one-half tons in Hawaii. However, there is a good deal of uncertainty regarding the figures, and some authorities consider the total crop very much larger than the amount just mentioned.

The general practice in India is to plant the cane each year, and ratooning is seldom met with outside of the Poonah district. For fertilization, stable manure, town refuse and crushed oil cake are used. The cane is planted from February to April and harvested from the middle of January to the middle of March of the year following. Water for irrigation purposes is taken from rivers and wells. Climatic conditions are frequently unfavorable. There are long dry spells, the low-lying lands are subject to floods in the rainy season, and in certain sections frost plays havoc with the cane.

Not only was India the original home of sugar cane, but, according to recognized authorities, the secret of preparing sugar from cane juice, which dates from the seventh century, also came from there. Today modern methods are employed to a certain extent, but the original processes predominate, and a word or two concerning the latter will no doubt prove interesting.

The cane is cut into short lengths, placed in a kind of mortar and crushed with a large pestle, worked by oxen. The juice runs through a hole in the side of the mortar into a vessel placed to receive it. The practice in former days was to saw off a good-sized tamarind tree about three feet above the groundand then scoop out the stump. Later, logs were sunk deep in the ground and hollowed out in the same manner. Stone mortars followed, meeting with great favor, so that the advent of iron roller mills was delayed for many years.

In the mortar-and-pestle operation of cane grinding, the pestle consists of a lever with two arms. The crushing end of the principal arm rests on the side of the mortar and the cane is ground between the pestle and the mortar wall. The apparatus is driven by oxen.

WOODEN MILL FROM GORAKHPUR, INDIA

This method was improved upon by the introduction of the mill with two-geared wooden rolls set vertically, the core of the taller one projecting upward through a frame and attached to a horizontal lever to which the oxen are harnessed. When the mill is started the cane is fed between the wooden gears andthe juice expressed in this manner. A further development brought in geared iron cylinders or drums, in sets of two and three. The extraction by these means is extremely poor, ranging from 50 per cent to 62 per cent.

BOILING BY OLD METHOD, INDIA

FURNACE AND PANS FOR MAKING RAB, INDIA

Indian sugar makers treat the cane juice in many ways, but all the various grades or kinds produced come under one of two general heads,gurorrab.

STONE MILL, AGRA, INDIA

When making gur the juice is first freed from floating particles of cane by straining. It is then run into a large earthen vessel sunk in the ground. From there it is ladled into smaller pans placed above a furnace, which is a very primitive affair, generally with three pans and having side walls of tiles or brick. Cane trash and bagasse are used as fuel. When the juice in the first pan begins to boil, a thick scum forms on the top and is skimmed off, and this operation is kept up until the liquor becomes clear. It is then taken to the third pan for further boiling and finally concentrated in the second. In many instances purification is limited to skimming, but sometimes this is supplementedby adding milk of lime or crude soda ash to the liquor. The scum is set aside to be fed to cattle or very poor people.

When the yellowish-brown mass is boiled to a certain density it is constantly kept in motion by stirring and its consistency is tested at frequent intervals. As soon as it is found that it can be rolled into a ball that upon cooling will remain fairly soft, it is considered sufficiently cooked and the boiling operation comes to an end. Sometimes the hot gur is put into earthen moulds to cool and harden, sometimes it is worked with batons in an earthen vessel and after cooling is made into balls by hand, or flattened out and cut into triangles. The balls and triangles are placed in baskets to dry, after which they are supposed to be ready for consumption. Gur that is soft and of good grain lends itself admirably to the process of refining. Gur that has become solid and hard has to be eaten without further treatment and burnt gur is totally unfit for refining.

Rab is made in nearly the same manner, but with more attention paid to cleanliness. There are five iron pans, which are thoroughly cleansed daily; the skimming and clarifying operations are conducted with more care and the clear juice is filtered through cloth before being concentrated. When the mass of crystals and liquor is found to be of the proper consistency, it is poured into earthen pots to cool and well stirred to help crystallization. This process being finally complete, the moist and somewhat soft sugar can only be removed by breaking the pots containing it. Owing to its almost liquid condition, rab cannot conveniently be transported any distance, so that it is generally used near the place where it is made, chiefly for refining purposes. Gur, on the other hand, being harder, can readily be carried any distance.

SMALL LOCOMOTIVE USED TO DRAW CANE CARS, 2-FOOT GAUGE, INDIA

LOADING CANE CARRIER, MARHOURAH FACTORY, INDIA

Men are sometimes set to work tramping upon sacks filled with rab, in order to separate the syrup from the sugar; again sacks of rab are piled upon a floor with holes for drainage anda well for the syrup that runs off. Weights are often placed upon the bags in order to hasten the process. After the drainage is fairly complete, the rab is dumped into vessels having openings at the bottom and covered at the top by a layer of wet water plants. The water as it passes through the mass of sugar washes the syrup from the crystals and the liquor runs off through the apertures in the bottom. Several days afterward the operation is repeated, and so on until all the syrup has been removed by washing. The resulting sugar is either used in that form, or dried in the sun and worked by human feet in order to lighten its color.

Saiyid Muhammad Hadi, assistant director of the Land Records and Agriculture at Allahabad, has worked out an improved method for making rab which is now widely adopted. Under his plan the furnace heat can be readily controlled, so that the danger of burning the juices during boiling is considerably lessened; neither is there so much risk of decomposition (souring). Besides, the cooled rab is purged of its syrup in a centrifugal machine worked by hand instead of by drainage from wet vegetation. At best, however, the production of sugar by the natives of Hindustan is still at a very elementary stage, and in that country new ideas gain ground very slowly, so that it will be some time before modern machinery and equipment are generally in use.

It would seem that in view of the small production of sugar per acre and the enormous losses in manufacture, a modern plant, with machinery of the latest and best type and large financial resources, should be remarkably successful, but such is not the case. It appears to be impossible to get a steady supply of cane. In India, plantations like those found in other countries do not exist. Instead, there are a great number of extremely small pieces of land all under different ownership. The cane has to be brought to the mill from considerable distancesin small quantities, and owing to lack of intelligence or initiative on the part of the farmer it is of indifferent quality. Transportation facilities are far from good and the manufacturers have to make up the shortage in the supply of cane by using rab and gur. If the latter should contain an excessive amount of glucose or be caramelized, it does not lose its value as an article for direct consumption; on the other hand, either of these conditions unfit it for the purposes of refining, and as there is but a slight difference in price between gur and the white sugar into which it is made, the disadvantage to the refiner is readily apparent. Another drawback is that the Hindus do not take kindly to sugar manufactured by the European process, consequently chini, or sugar made from rab by the native method, commands a better price than, sugar made in a modern refinery. Religious and caste prejudices exert a strong influence also. In modern sugar refining, animal charcoal is the principal purifying and decolorizing agent, and this, together with the fact that ox-blood has been used for clarification, causes the Hindus to reject sugar prepared by such means. Finally, there is the apprehension on the part of the high-caste natives that the sugar may have been produced by low-caste labor and that to eat it would bring defilement.

The refiners of India have begun to recognize the advantage to them in using raw European beet-root sugars and raw cane from Java and Mauritius instead of the more costly preparations of rab and gur. As a result, there is a considerable quantity of foreign sugar imported into India which is consumed ultimately by the high-caste native without his being aware of its origin.

The imports during the period from 1908 to 1916 were as follows:

Of this tonnage, Austria supplied the greater amount of the beet, Germany the remainder, while the cane came from Java and Mauritius. In 1913 and 1914 the raw beet from Austria and Germany was almost entirely displaced by washed Java raws, the trade name for which is “Java white.” Some sugar is exported, but the quantity is insignificant.

WATER-DRIVEN CENTRIFUGALS, MARHOURAH FACTORY, INDIA

CHAMPARAN SUGAR COMPANY, LTD., BARRAH CHAKIA, CHAMPARAN, INDIA

As to the future of the industry in India, the theory is held by many that with modern scientific methods governing cultivation and manufacture, that country would be able not only to provide for its own requirements, but would be a competitor for export trade in the markets of the world. If such a condition is to be brought about, it will not be by improvement in the cane fields and the manufacturing plants alone. There are other problems to be overcome before there can be any great change for the better,—the stubborn opposition of the natives to innovations, the extreme smallness of individual holdings, poverty, lack of initiative and co-operation,—these are the main obstacles in the way of a material increase in the present enormous production, and they will not be easily surmounted.

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