Evening star., 1925-05-03

sugar mill. Its owner operated II for
the grinding of the cane of neighbor-
ing growers, somewhat as in old days
In the States the neighborhood miller
ground the grain of the farmers and
took his toll in cash or in flour.
The New System
The old central has passed. In its
stead has come the new central OF
high organization, the great factory
capable OF grinding several Thousand
| tons of cane day, hiring thousands
of hands, owning several hundred
| miles of railroad. This is the new de
velopment in Porto Rico. the concen
tration of the sugar industry in a
| comparatively few corporations
which are producing the big money
crop and working the cane to the last
penny of value and cutting the cor.
ners in intensive cultivation and the
most efficient mill management.
Porto Rico never could have
reached its present point of sugar
production under the old system. 1t
could not have become a factor in the
sugar market, as 1t is today The
field hands could never have attained
their present state of prosperity
meager as their rewards may seem
on the old basis of the small. more or
less cooperative central system
So the old chimney stack, pathetic
souvenir of a bygone system, stands
for the Porto Rico of yesterday, while
the great humming seat of industry,
with its four or even more great
steel stacks, each sending forth a
Streamer of smoke, to which are
being wheeled hundreds of cars and
carts OF cane daily for the grinding
is the token of the Porto Rico of to-
day. the Porto Rico of prosperity
under American rule
The mills. when they start grind.
ing in January, run day and night
until the last stalk is crushed and the
last drop of sirup is evaporated and
crystallized. On Sundays the vats and
boilers and other processes whereby
ehe sugar is actually produced from
the sirup are still at work, while the
crushing mills are idle for a few
hours, giving a chance to clean and
repair them. Day and night, cease
lessly, the stream continues to flow
for six months, the golden stream that
Columbus missed when he was hunt
ing for FL Dorado.
The Making of Sugar.
A trip through a sugar central
always remember the accent on the
second sylla ble-is an object lesson in
efficiency, skill, watchfulness. science
and management. From the cars,
loaded in the fields. the great masses
Of cane are hoisted by cranes and then
begins the procession that leads
through the grinders. into the watts,
into the lining tanks, through
the defecators, the filter presses,
the evaporators, the centrifugals
and finally into the bags. |
may have missed one or two of the
steps, perhaps more, for to the
uninitiated the process is an astonish-
ing succession of skilled manipula-
tions and highly intelligent machines
But there are the cars of cane az one
end of the mill and at the other, a few
score Of yards away, slide the bags of
sugar into the Observation-Disclosures IL
hours later.
The chemical laboratory is the most
important part of the works, for upon
the tests constantly conducted there
are based the payments to those who
sell the cane to the central. Not all
of the cane is grown by the central
owning corporation. Much of 1t comes
from the fields of "colonos." or private
growers, and who are paid according