A NEW SUGAR PLANT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2170, 21 December 1885, Page 2

A NEW SUGAR PLANT.

, European sugar refiners havo lately discovered in Central. India a forest tree which seems likely to completely reyol-, utionise their industry, and it is already' asserted that in a not'very distant future . the beet will bo discarded from ■ the 'ex- ■ trading pans of Continental Sugar bakers',.... • and the cane of the West Indies become' as extinct as the carbonized palm-reeds of tho pre-historic coal measures. The change isto bebrought about.by an insignificant little flower produced : m enormous quantities on the"mahwa"or"moola" tree, , which abounds in, the southern half' of M Hmdoatan, and is occasionally encoun- gj tered in tho more northerly regions m abutting on the Himalayan mountains; The blossoms are far from striking in appearance. They are sweet and mawkish- ' to tho taste, like the manna of :the druggist, and what is move, to tlio purpose, • ' 'they yield on being pressed; one-half their weight in pure sugar, for they are. found to consist almost explusively of' saccharine'matter contained in a vegetable envelope.As each tree is capable of producing, without any attention or cultivation, something like a ton of blossoms ' annuilly, which'means half atonof sugar, the value of the "mahwa".iuay be easily : imagined. Anyway, European refiners are boginning to realize what a harvest of sweets is to be gathered from the.troQ, and immense quantities of tho.'flowevsW<) at the present moment heinsf imported .* by Continental bakera fof the purposes of trade. The London' Post' Says that the Hindoos have- for 'many years made sugar from, the "mahwaj' tree, in a very primitive fashion, : .