SUGAR. Although this valuable commo dity is obtainable from various sources, the sugar cane is that which yields by far the largest supply. This cane grows in the warm districts both of the old and the new world.
stems vary in height from eight feet up even to twenty feet, and are divided by prominent annular joints into short lengths. The outer part of the cane is hard and brittle ; but the inner consists of a soft pith, which contains the sweet juice, and this juice is elaborated separately in each joint. The canes are usually propagated by slips or cuttings, which are planted either in holes dug by hand, or in trenches formed by a plough, about eight to twelve inches deep. The planting usually takes place from August to November, and the cutting in March or April. The maturity of the cane is indicated by the skin becoming dry, smooth and brittle; by the cane becoming heavy; the pith gray, approach ing to brown ; and the juice sweet and gluti nous. The canes which grow immediately from the planted slips are called plant-canes ; but it is usual, in the West Indies, to raise several crops in successive years from the same roots ; the canes which sprout up from the old roots, or stoles, being called raltoons. The rattoons are not so vigorous as the origi nal plant-canes ; but they afford better sugar, and that with less trouble in clarifying and concentrating the juice. The canes are cut as near the ground as possible, because the richest juice is found in the lower joints ; and, after cutting them, it is considered well to cut the stumps down a few inches below the surface of the ground, and to cover them up with mould. One or two of the top joints of the cane are cut off, and the remainder is divided into pieces about a yard long, tied up in bundles, and carried immediately to the sugar-mill. The upper branches of the cane are used as food for cattle; and the remainder of the waste forms a valuable manure, for which purpose the trash, or waste from the mill, is admirably suited, though much of it is usually consumed as fuel.
Manufacture,—The manufacture of sugar is that train of operations by which the juice is extracted from the canes, and brought to a granulated state. In the West India sugar miffs employed for crushing the canes, a negro applies the canes in a regular layer or sheet to the interval between two rollers, which seize and compress them violently as they pass between them. The ends of the canes are then turned, either by another negro on the opposite side to the feeder, or by a framework of wood called a dumb returner, so that they may pass back again between two other rollers placed closer together. Channels
are made to receive the liquor expressed from the canes, and to conduct it to the vessels in which it is to undergo the succeeding opera.. tions. Improved sugar mills have been lately brought into use.
Cane-juice as expressed by the mill, is an opaque slightly viscid fluid, of a dull gray, olive, or olive-green colour, and of a sweet balmy taste. The juice is so exceedingly fermentable that in the climate of the West Indies it would often run into the acetons fermentation in twenty minutes after leaving the mill, if the process of clarifying were not immediately commenced.
The processes followed in the West Indies for separating the sugar from the juice are as follows. The juice is conducted by channels from the mill to large flat bottomed clarifiers, which contain from three hundred to a thousand gallons each. When the clarifier is filled with juice, a little slaked lime is added to it ; and when the liquor in the clarifier becomes hot by a fire underneath, the solid portions of the cane juice coagulate, and are thrown up in the form of scum. The clarified juice, which is bright, clear, and of a yellow wine-colour, is transferred to the largest of a series of evapo rating coppers, or pans, three or more in number, in which it is reduced in bulk by boiling ; it is transferred from one pan to another, and heated until the sugar is brought to the state of a soft mass of crystals, imbedded in molasses, a thick, viscid, and uncrystallisable fluid. The soft concrete sugar is removed from the coolers into a range of casks, in which the molasses gradually drains from the crystalline portion, percolating through spongy plantain-stalks placed in a hole at the bottom of each cask, which act as so many drains to convey the liquid to a large cistern beneath. With sugar of average quality three or four weeks is sufficient for this purpose. The liquid portion constitutes molasses, which is employed to make rum. - The crystallised portion is packed in hogsheads for shipment as Raw, Brown, or Muscovado Sugar ; and in this state it is commonly exported from our West Indian colonies. The sugar loses usually about 12 per cent. in weight by the drainage of the remaining molasses from it while on ship-board.