In the districts of the Nerbudda, we often see these black
hornblende mortars, in which sugar-canes were once pressed by a happy
peasantry, now standing upon a bare and barren surface of sandstone
rock, twenty feet above the present surface of the culturable lands
of the country. There are evident signs of the surface on which they
now stand having been that on which they were last worked. The people
get more juice from their small straw-coloured canes in these pestle-
and-mortar mills than they can from those with cylindrical rollers in
the present rude state of the mechanical arts all over India; and the
straw-coloured cane is the only kind that yields good sugar. The
large purple canes yield a watery and very inferior juice; and are
generally and almost universally sold in the markets as a fruit. The
straw-coloured canes, from being crowded under a very slovenly
System, with little manure and less weeding, degenerate into a mere
reed. The Otaheite cane, which was introduced into India by me in
1827, has spread over the Nerbudda, and many other territories; but
that that will degenerate in the same manner under the same slovenly
system of tillage, is too probable.
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