Three million acres of land is devoted to the cultivation of sugar, both cane and beet.  During the Cuban revolution the industry secured quite an impetus, but since the restoration of peace and the adjustment of affairs, prices have gone down considerably, and the sugar of India finds itself in direct competition with the bounty-paid product of Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and other European countries.  In order to protect its planters the government has imposed countervailing duties against European sugar, but there has been no perceptible effect from this policy as yet.

The indigo trade has been very important, but is also in peril because of the manufacture of chemical dyes in Germany and France.  Artificial indigo and other dyes can be produced in a laboratory much cheaper than they can be grown in the fields, and, naturally, people will buy the low-priced article, Twenty years ago India had practically a monopoly of the indigo trade, and 2,000,000 acres of land were planted to that product, while the value of the exports often reached $20,000,000.  The area and the product have been gradually decreasing, until, in 1902, only a little more than 800,000 acres were planted and the exports were valued at less than $7,000,000.

The quinine industry is also in a deplorable state.  About thirty years ago the Indian government sent botanists to South America to collect young cinchona trees.  They were introduced into various parts of the empire, where they flourished abundantly until the export of bark ran nearly to 4,000,000 pounds a year, but since 1899 there has been a steady fall.  Exports have declined, prices have been low, and the government plantations have not paid expenses.  Rather than export the bark at a loss the government has manufactured sulphate at its own factories and has furnished it at cost price to the health authorities of the native states, the British provinces, the army and the hospitals and dispensaries.

One of the most interesting places about Calcutta is the Royal Botanical Gardens, where many important experiments have been made for the benefit of the agricultural industry of India.  It is one of the most beautiful and extensive arboreums in the world, and at the same time its economic usefulness has been unsurpassed by any similar institution.  It was established nearly 150 years ago by Colonel Kyd, an ardent botanist, under the auspices of the East India Company, and from its foundation it was intended to be, as it has been, a source of botanical information, a place for botanical experiments, and a garden in which plants of economic value could be cultivated and issued to the public for the purpose of introducing new products into India.  It has been of incalculable value in all these particulars, not only by introducing new plants, but by demonstrating which could be grown with profit.

[Illustration:  Great banyan tree—­botanical garden—­Calcutta]