NEW SOURCE OF SUGAR SUPPLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7513, 17 December 1885, Page 6

NEW SOURCE OF SUGAR SUPPLY.

The production of sugar is a question of tho greatest importance to all civilized countries. Sugar is a substance all like, and the use extends in all countries according as the social circumstanoes of the people improve* Just aa the profits of trade Login to make any country rich, so surely is tho consumption of sugar in that country increased. During recent years the production of sugar from beetroot has been largely extended, especially in Franoe and Germany, under the pressure of heavy taxation drawn from the general body of the people. Indeed, so severely has this state-subsidized industry been pressing upon the producers of sugar from sugar-cane, that great distress has been produced in sugarcane producing countries. But it would aeem that both beet and sugar-cane aro likely to meet with an unsuspected competitor as the source of our sugar supply. Tho genus of plants known to botanists by the name of Bassia, named after Ferdinando Bassia, curator of tho Botanic Gardens of Bologna, and belonging to the natural order of Sapolacea, give promise of contributing largely to the world's sugar yield in the near future. Several species of this genus of plants grow naturally in various parts of British India, as well as on the mountain slopes of the adjoining native state of Nepaul. The chief of these plants are : B. butyracea, the Indian bntter tree ; B. latifolia, the mahwah tree of Bengal; and B. longifolia. The first two are tho most important, as the products of both these trees have for many years been turned to commercial purposes by the Hindoos. The former trees yield a valuable timber, while the Bowers of both yield a supply of sugar, extraotod in a rough and somewhat unscientific manner ; and the seeds of both trees have been used for extracting a kind of butter, which ie sometimes used for adulterating ghee, at other times it is converted into oil, soap, pomatum, &c. The mahwah tree (B. latifolia) has the faculty of shedding its flowors in vast quantities, which are gathered up by the Bheels on sheets spread under the trees. These are driod and stored for various purposes, and when these turbulent tribes are more than ordinarily troublesome, no threat by the punishing British troops is more effectual than that of proposing to cut down all their mahwah trees. To these people the Mahwah trees are little less useful than the date trees to the tribes in Northern Africa. Though the flowers of both, tho B. butyraoea and the B. latifolia, have long been known to European botanists to yield a large quantity of sugar, and that the natives aietill spirits from them, little attention has been given to the circumstance until recently. Not long ago a quantity of these mahwah flowers were sent from India to some sugarboilers on the Continent of Europe, and this circumstance has forcibly drawn the attention of the British to the subject. At present rather startling statements are made ai to the quantity of sugar which is capable of , being extracted from the flowers of these trees. It is said a full-grown tree will produce fully a ton of blossoms, and that fifty per cent, of the weight is capable of being converted into raw sugar. If so, the sugar crop of the Bassia trees may yet revolutionize the world's sugar trade, for it is orident that neither beet, sugar-cane, uor any other plant from which sugar is at present extracted, would yield a quantity at all approaching to the above. If one tree well exposed to the tun and air is capable of produciug flowers from which half a ton of crystallieable sugar can be extracted, what will be the yield of an acre of such trees? From forty to seventy such trees could probably be grown upon an acre of ground, and if the (lowers of each were.to yield in like proportion, the quantity of sugar a small area of ground would produce would be immense. But while, as might be expected, the trees blossom most abundantly when not too crowded, it is eaid that trees growing in the depth of the forest have produced their five or siT hundred pounds of flowers per tree. If the accounts circulated respecting the character of the flowers of this tree are not terribly exaggerated, the sugar trade is on the eve of a change such as it has never hitherto experienced. The tree is known to be reasonably hardy, strikes freely from cuttings, and is not too exacting as to the quality of land upon which it is grown. The natural shedding of the flowers will save much labour in gathering them ; and it the tree is hardy on the elopes of the Himalayas, it is possible it might find a congenial home in many of the warmer sheltered valleys in the north of Auckland. In our sister colonies of Fiji and many parts of Australia the tree would also probably find a suitable home ; and our local sugar-refining company, fruit-growers, as well ae enterprising citizens of all classes tthould willingly lend a band in trying to introduce to our adopted home a tree possessing such prodigious wealthproducing powers.