New Britain herald., 1917-02-16
PORTO RICO AGAIN
 CHANGING MASTERS
We Took It From Spain But
 Are Losing It Again

" l.
 Since that time American tobacco
 and sugar inteyests have been taking 1 it away from Uncle Sam.
 Vegetation of a tropical nature is
 extremely prolific upon the island and efruts of different descriptions, coffee, sugar and tobacco form the exports
 made Drincipallk to the United States | of the different forms of industry the 1 sugar growing and refining furnishes 1 perhaps the most interesting The .cane fields of the island are confined I largely to the flat areas near salt | water though some cane is growr
 upon the steep hillsides that are a distinguishing mark of Porto Rico. l On the flats, however, the largest re- ] fineries are located and they are us-
 ually placed in the midst of the cane
 to facilitate the handling of the | commodity.
 1 Sugar cane, bamboo like growth,
 reaches a height of from four to six l feet. The stalks are filled with a 1 pith which yield. upon crushing: a 1 great deal of juice which is heavy l with the sugar., The cane is planted l in the form of slips and allowed to grow eighteen months before crop l is harvested. It then may be cut every year for three years when the 1 loose stalks are burned off and the land plowed for another crop. It is harvested by men equipped with l knives or machetes of nearly three | feet in length. Hundreds of the reapers. welding the knives, cut into | the fields which present an impene- trable jungle to man unless he is equipped with a knife. They strip l and throw the juicy stalks into heaps l leaving the long leaves where they | fall.
 In carrying the cane to the mills a 1 queer mixture of ancient and modern implements are used Small oxen with enormous horns drag ancient carts filed with the cane. Motor trucks of the most advanced type carry their quota and miniature ] railroad helps with the work. Tracks for the railroad are made in sections
 and may be fitted together and laid
 across any field. Small steam loco
 motives are used in a few instances to haul the laden cars but it is no 1 unusual sight to see from four to ten oxen Eitched-to a string of the cars and proceeding toward the mill, known in that country as the Central. Once at the mill the cane is piled into heaps at the foot of an incline
 for carrying it into the mangler. A
 steam crane picks it from motor
 truck, OK wagon, or railway car in
 discrimina :ely and deposits it in the
 heap. It is thence fed into the end
 less chain arrangement which pulls it
 mp to the mangler where it is given
 2 thorough chewing by rotating jaws. thus separating the juice from the stalk. Only about sixty per cent. of the liquid is removed from the pith for a reason which will soon be ex- plained.
 ''Boiling Down. the Juice.
 The process of treating the juice is then one of "boiling down." It is run through large vats, some of them containing vacuum and subjected to great heat. In the earlier part of the process the syrup is intro "uccd to 2 thorough cleansing with lime water which precipitates the
 dirt collected from the stalks While
 running through the various vats the
 syrup becomes thicker and thicker.
 gradually assuming the appearance of
 kettle of fudge on the kitchen stove
 It Is tested, much like fudge, to de-
 termine when the time is ripe to run
 1t through the separator. When it
 hardens upon a glass slide it is ready
 for the final treatment which is given
 upon the island. ..
 For the last hour perhaps the
 heavy syrup has been losing it's mois-
 ture in large vacuum vats The tester
 stands by and finally finds the mix
 ture to have reached it's proper con-
 sistancy whereupon he dumps the
 contents of the vat into another
 handy vat which is to hold the sur plus before it goes into the seDerator. The separator is a large drum of cop- per With a fine mesh in it surrounded by another drum which is solid The interior drum is capable of being re- volved at a high speed and contains perhaps twenty-five gallons of the liquid. It is filled through a trough from the reserve vats. The dark liquid is too heavy to flow through the fine mesh when it is fed into the interior drum but when this drum is set at revolving the~centrifugal force drives the liquid through the mesh and the grain in the compound re-
 mains ontthe side walls of the drum. The black mixture gradually becomes whiter as the drum reyDlves and the outer cylinder catches the dark liquid 1 as it flies through the mesh. The gain in the interior drum is sugar, that in tho outer molasses The sugar, now brownish white is collected from the separator and put into bags to be shipped to the states for the last steps in refining. The molasses runs into vats of where it may easily be transported to barrels.
 Needless to say there is at every Central an up-tO-date laboratory where the can juice is tested at diff
 ferent stages in it's progress to de- termine the quality and quantity of sugar yielded. Each bag is also tested before it is shipped to deter mine it's uualitS.