, 1877-03-10

44O SS0 NS ~ n - SP04Sb
and bending over the hot mass Of syrup,
begins to spread it about and mix il in all
directions. AS 1t cooIs it thickens, and
his work gets harder and harder; up and
down. backwards and forwards he works
the stiGening sugar until it loses its liquid
state. Then be takes up a short piece of
wood with two upwright handles holding
these, he commences rubbing the sugar
over as hard 40 he possibly can, evidently
exerting oil his strength. Gradually the
mass assumes a sand-like appearance, its
colour getting lighter and lighter ; and
within an hour from its being merely sap
in the cane, the juice is expressed, boiled,
cooled and made into sugar. Everything
10 most primitive and simple.
"Before being planted, the cane ends
are soaked till they sprout, ard thus the
ground has a little longer to lie faIlow or
It can be worked and got in readiness
while the ~Sprouting process is going on.
After all,-aiter the planting, cultlvating,
cutting, bringing to the mill, and the
other processes described above, the sugar
produced only brings about three farthings
q pound sold wholesale, 40 that, in all pro-
liability, the worker OF the sugar only gets
about o bAlf-penny a pound for it. The
white kind, which goes through a sum
drying and other processes is worth about
twice as much, but it is made from better
cane, and also loses much in weight in
che process Of drying"
In this connection it will not be out Of
place to add a few details kindly furnished
By a mercantile gentleman at Swallow to
Her Maiesty's Consul, and by him embodi-
ed in q recent Trade Report. The particular
description that has been most wanted Of
late at this, the chief sugar port in China,
10 that known as "ch~-yOnR yellow" which
although it is in appearance brown sugar,
ig subject TO duty as white. It is the
grade between the regular brown and the
commences kinds OF white, which latter have
gone through the full process Of being
clayed. The process may be succiDctIy
described as follows The cane juice,
having been grsnulated in the process of
boiling, 10. in it's granulated state, placed in
eOne-shapcd eHrthenware vessels, with the
narrow end lowest, and covered over with
clay. In this position the molasses grad ual-
" leave the sugar, and the longer the time
&B1OWcU AS1 S0S OIoiNA"B PlONCSS1 CH0 WbttCA
and drier the sugar is turned out. The
''c1S.yONg yellow" sugar generally drains
for only four or Ave days, whereas the
common white kinds continue from TWEEN
4y-Gve to Fifty days under this process.
Sir John Davis, in his instructive work
on the Chinese, gives, briefly, q nearly
identical account Of part OF the process.
The juice Of the sugar cane, he says, is ex-
pressed in mills similar to those used in
India, according to the description of DR..
Buchanan. "The mills consist Of two up
right cylinders, which are put in motion
by q buffalo yoked to a beam passing from
the top Of one cylinder. The mill is fed
By introducing the cane between the roll
eTs, by which il 10 crushed and carried
over to the other side. The expressed
Juice runs through q channel below into q
large reservoir. whence it 10 transferred to
boilers. and being there sufficiently inspis-
aated, 10 aent in tubs to the refners."
The Chinese, 90 far as We are aware, do
not know anything about white l~Oafsugar;
their brown soft sugar is very coarse, and
sven the. whittier kinds are generally full
Of adventitious matter, and appear very
inferior to the European eye ; their sugar
candy, however, 10 exceedingly good, and
we have tasted some which seemed to us
quite equal to that usually sold in Eng
N~rN