Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1883-05-02
which the sugar mill alone with its
improyed machinery. cost 5000 600.

W
improved machinery, cost 100000.
Some of the largest planters even go
to the expense of ramifying the cane
tract with narrow-guage railroads, some
of them two or three miles long, to
bring the cane economically to the
crushing mill. Americans who have
lived here in Cuba all agree as to the
ordinary character of the Cuban sugar
planter. He is kindly, hospitable,
courteous and very often an educated
and refined gentleman But he is
dreadfully .improvident and wasteful.
The $500 or more which he may
make in good sugar year is often dis
sipated in Havana before the next year
begins. His plantation is apt to be
loaded with debt, and this, with the
stupendous taxes that he pays and his
persistency in never looking ahead, ex-
plains the miserable plight in which so
many of the rich Cuban sugar farms
are found at the present time.
MAKING SUGAR.
To explain fully the process of sugar
making would require too technical and
prosy a narrative to recite here. But
the methods for all practical purposes
may be divided into two-one the i'm
proved process producing the better
grade of Centrifugal" sugar, the other
producing the old process, or "Musco-
vado" article of commerce. The cane
stalks, from four to eight feet long, cut
and stripped of their leaves, are brought
to the mill. Then, strewn on broad
belt, working on the principle of an
endless chain, they are passed between
three great rollers laid very close to-
gether and worked by steam. Thence
the thin watery fluid, very sweet to
the taste and yellowish in hue. passes
to succession of boiling-pans or round
caldrons, where it is boiled down by
slow degrees, until the crystallization
point is reached, much the same as is
done with the maple sap, of our own
country. When the last boiling is
ended, the product is mass of crystal
lized sugar, soaking in molasses. To
get rid Of the molasses, the old plan,
and the one still adopted on unimprov-
ed Cuban estates, is to pour the mix
ture into hogsheads and let the syrup
drain off for several weeks through the
cracks. This produces the Muscovado
sugar, an article inferior in saccharine
strength to the Centrifugal" product.
To make the latter the sugar and
molasses mixture is placed in huge
perforated cylinder, which may be
likened to a great sieve. This cylinder
revolves on an upright axis in another
large cylindrical vessel. Whirled then
with an enormous number of revolu-
tions minute, the liquid is thrown
out, leaving the sugar crystals dry,
and doing in few minutes, and far
more effectively, the work of weeks by
the Muscovado method. The crystals
left behind vary in size from a mere
speck to small pea. This crude sugar
has aburnt brown tint, and tastes much
like the rock candy of the confectioner.
The scum that rises during the various
boilings, the refuse juice and fermented
molasses is treated by distillation to
make rum. So brief a description as
this of sugar making does not, how
ever, even hint at the skill aud eXper-
ience exacted in the process. The
sugar maker has to treat the raw juice
chemically to prevent fermentation,
must know to q nicely all the variations
of heat in boiling. must be able to de-
tect and measure the degrees of crys-
tallization, and must be Yersed in
dozen other points only acquired by
years of experience. and acute observa-
tion.
The grains or. more correctly speak
ing, crystals of crude sugar, still remain
colored externally by the mo!asses.
One of the local methods of whitening
them, producing refined" article, is
to place the sugar in inverted conical
moulds, with hole at the lower ex-
tremity. Then the invered base of the
cone is plastered over with wet mix
ture of clay and bullock's blood. The
moisture, percolating through the mass,
drips out below, and washes the grains
clean. When the clay is quite dry the
sugar is taken from the mould, and is
of cloudy white color, not very at.
tractiye to the eye. but with Q saccha-
rine strength that far surpasses that of
the more slightly pure white crystals
turned out by our great refineries.
These latter are partly the result Of
chemical process of bleaching, and
Cubans always refer to their slightly
appearance with laughing contempt.
Their homemade article, they aver,
not only is much more sweet, but dis
solves completely in both cold and hot
fluids, while the English and American
factory product leaves residuum.
The gross sugar product of Cuba is
each year worth probably not less than
$1OO, 900, 600, of which about half goes
to the United States. In the season
when the crop is sent to market there
is semblauce of life along the railroad
lines and at the docks of the chief sea-
ports. But when one sees the enor-
nous natural resources of the country,
its size, its unimproved lands, and then
contrasts the sugar product with the
possibilities, the sugar crop, large as it
is, seems positively contemplate. In
truth, the planter labors under some
harassing drawbacks. Taxes almost
without nenber or limit, the reorgani-
cation Of the slave system into free
labor, high rates for working capital,
are foes not to be despised. Neverthe-
less after all has been said, the planters
worst enemy is himself, with his tropi-
cal listlessness, his morbid lack of On
terprise and the fatal e4travagance
which follows profitable year and in
eyitably casts its shadows on the ne4t.
An island of Vermillion Bay, on
the coast OF Louisiana, has solid
mass of salt at depth of twenty feet
SO hard that it requires to be mined