a solid sweet substance, obtained from the juice of the sugar-cane; or, according to chemists, an essential salt, capable of crystallization, of a sweet and agreeable flavour, and contained in a greater or less quantity in almost every species of vegetables, but most abundant in the sugar-cane.
As the sugar-cane is the principal production of the West Indies, and the great source of their riches; as it is so important in a commercial view, from the employment which it gives to seamen, and the wealth which it opens for merchants, and besides is now become a necessary of life; it may justly be esteemed one of the most valuable plants in the world. From the few remains of the Grecian and Roman authors which have survived the ravages of time, we can find no proofs that the juice of the sugar-cane was known at a very early period. There can however be no doubt, that in those countries where it was indigenous, its value was not long concealed. It is not improbable that it was known to the ancient Jews; for there is some reason to suppose, that the Hebrew word שֶׁרֶב, which frequently occurs in the Old Testament, and by our translators is rendered sometimes calamus, and sometimes sweet cane, does in fact mean the sugar-cane. The first passage in which we have observed it mentioned is Exodus, xxx. 23, where Moses is commanded to make an ointment with myrrh, cinnamon, kene, and cassia. Now the kene does not appear to have been a native of Egypt, nor of Judea; for in Jeremiah, vi. 20, it is mentioned as coming from a far country. "To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country?" This is not true of the calamus aromaticus, which grows spontaneously in the Levant, as well as in many parts of Europe. If the cinnamon mentioned in the passage of Exodus quoted above was true cinnamon, it must have come from the East Indies, the only country in the world from which cinnamon is obtained. There is no difficulty therefore in supposing that the sugar-cane was exported from the same country. If any credit be due to etymology, it confirms the opinion that kene denotes the sugar-cane; for the Latin word cannna, and the English word cane, are evidently derived from it. It is also a curious fact, that שֶׁרֶב, sachar or sheker, in Hebrew signifies inebriation, from which the Greek word σάκχαρον or σάκχαρον, sugar, is undoubtedly to be traced.
The sugar-cane was first made known to the western parts of the world by the conquests of Alexander the Great. Strabo (lib. xv.) relates that Nearchus, his admiral, found it in the East Indies in the year 325 before Christ. It is evidently alluded to in a fragment of Theophrastus, preserved in Photius. Varro, who lived A.D. 68, describes it in a fragment quoted by Isidorus, as a fluid pressed from reeds of a large size, which was sweeter than honey? Dioscorides, about the year 35 before Christ, says "that there is a kind of honey called saccharon, which is found in India and Arabia Felix. It has the appearance of salt, and is brittle when chewed. If dissolved in water, it is beneficial to the bowels, and stomachic; is useful in diseases of the bladder and kidneys; and when sprinkled on the eye, removes those substances that obscure the sight." This is the first account we have of its medicinal qualities. Galen often prescribed it as a medicine. Lucan (lib. iii. v. 237) relates, that an oriental nation in alliance with Pompey used the juice of the cane as a common drink.
Quoque bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos.
Pliny says it was produced in Arabia and India, but that the best came from the latter country. It is also mentioned by Arrian, in his Periplus of the Red Sea, by the name of σάκχαρον (sacchari), as an article of commerce from India to the Red Sea. Ἀλίαν, Tertullian, and Alexander Aphro-
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1 Kirby's Suffolk Traveller. Arthur Young's General View of the Agriculture of Suffolk. Views in Suffolk, by W. C. Brayley. 2 Lib. xvii. cap. 3. Matthiolii Dios. cap. lxxv. 3 Nat. Hist. De Judicio Del. That the sugar-cane is an indigenous plant in some parts of the East Indies, we have the strongest reason to believe; for Thumberg found it in Japan, and has accordingly mentioned it as a native of that country in his *Flora Japonica*, published in 1784. Osbeck also found it in China in 1751. It may indeed have been transplanted from some other country; but as it does not appear from history that the inhabitants of Japan or China ever carried on any commerce with remote nations, it could only be conveyed from some neighbouring country. Marco Polo, a noble Venetian, who travelled into the east about the year 1250, found sugar in abundance in Bengal. Vasco de Gama, who doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, relates that a considerable trade in sugar was then carried on in the kingdom of Calicut. On the authority of Dioscorides and Pliny, we should be disposed to admit that it is a native of Arabia, did we not find, on consulting Niebuhr's Travels, that this botanist has omitted it when enumerating the most valuable plants of that country. If it be a spontaneous production of Arabia, it must still flourish in its native soil. Mr Bruce found it in Upper Egypt. If we may believe the relation of Giovan Lioni, a considerable trade was carried on in sugar in Nubia in 1500. It abounded also at Thebes, on the Nile, and in the northern parts of Africa, about the same period.
There is reason to believe that the sugar-cane was introduced into Europe during the crusades; expeditions which, however romantic in their plan, and unsuccessful in their execution, were certainly productive of many advantages to the nations of Europe. Albertus Aquensis, a monkish writer, observes that the Christian soldiers in the Holy Land frequently derived refreshment and support during a scarcity of provisions, by sucking the canes. This plant also flourished in the Morea, and in the islands of Rhodes and Malta, from which it was transported into Sicily. The date of this transaction it is not easy to ascertain; but we are sure that sugar was cultivated in that island previously to the year 1166; for Laftau the Jesuit, who wrote a history of the Portuguese discoveries, mentions a donation made that year to the monastery of St Bennet, by William II., king of Sicily, of a mill for grinding sugar-canies, with all its rights, members, and appurtenances. From Sicily, where the sugar-cane still flourishes, on the sides of Mount Hybla, it was conveyed to Spain, Madeira, the Canary and Cape de Verd Islands, soon after they were discovered in the 15th century.
An opinion has prevailed that the sugar-cane is not a native of the western continent, or its adjacent islands the West Indies, but was conveyed thither by the Spaniards or Portuguese soon after the discovery of America by Columbus. From the testimony of Peter Martyr, in the third book of his first decade, composed during Columbus's second voyage, which commenced in 1493 and ended in 1495, it appears that the sugar-cane was known at that time in Hispaniola. It may be said that it was brought thither by Columbus, but for this assertion we have found no direct evidence; and though we had direct evidence, this would not prove that the sugar-cane was not an indigenous plant of the West Indies. There are authors of learning who, after investigating this subject with attention, do not hesitate to maintain that it is a native both of the islands and of the continent of America.
Labat has supported this opinion with much appearance of truth; and, in particular, he appeals to the testimony of Thomas Gage, an Englishman, who visited Newposed by Spain in 1625. Gage enumerates sugar-canies among the provisions with which the Charaïbes of Guadaloupe supplied his ship. "Now," says Labat, "it is a fact that the Spaniards had never cultivated an inch of ground in the smaller Antilles. Their ships commonly touched at those islands, indeed, for wood and water; and they left swine in the view of supplying with fresh provisions such of their countrymen as might call there in future; but it would be absurd in the highest degree to suppose that they would plant sugar-canies, and at the same time put hogs ashore to destroy them. Neither had the Spaniards any motive for bestowing this plant on islands which they considered as of no kind of importance, except for the purpose that has been mentioned; and to suppose that the Charaïbes might have cultivated, after their departure, a production of which they knew nothing, betrays a total ignorance of the Indian disposition and character.
"But," continues Labat, "we have surer testimony, and from such as proves, beyond all contradiction, that the sugar-cane is the natural production of America. For, besides the evidence of Francis Ximenes, who, in a treatise on American Plants, printed at Mexico, asserts that the sugar-cane grows without cultivation, and to an extraordinary use, on the banks of the river Plata, we are assured by Jean de Lery, a Protestant minister, who was chaplain in 1556 to the Dutch garrison in the fort of Coligny, on the river Janeiro, that he himself found sugar-canées in great abundance in many places on the banks of that river, and in situations never visited by the Portuguese. Father Henepen and other voyagers bear testimony in like manner to the growth of the cane near the mouth of the Mississippi; and Jean de Laet to its spontaneous production in the island of St Vincent. It is not for the plant itself, therefore, but for the secret of making sugar from it, that the West Indies are indebted to the Spaniards and Portuguese; and these to the nations of the east." Such is the reasoning of Labat, which the learned Laftau has pronounced incontrovertible; and it is greatly strengthened by recent discoveries, the sugar-cane having been found in many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean by our late illustrious navigator Captain Cook.
The sugar-cane, or saccharum officinarum of botanists, is a jointed reed, commonly measuring (the flag part notion of the included) from three feet and a half to seven feet in height, sugar-cane, but sometimes rising to twelve feet. When ripe it is of a fine straw colour inclining to yellow, producing leaves or blades, the edges of which are finely and sharply serrated, and terminating in an arrow decorated with a panicle. The joints in one stalk are from forty to sixty in number, and the stalks rising from one root are sometimes very numerous. The young shoot ascends from the earth like the point of an arrow; the shaft of which soon breaks, and the two first leaves, which had been enclosed within a quadruple sheath of seminal leaves, rise to a considerable height.
As the cane is a rank succulent plant, it must require a soil most favourable to its growth. strong deep soil to bring it to perfection, perhaps indeed no soil can be too rich for this purpose. The soil which experience has found to be most favourable to the cultivation of it in the West Indies, is the dark-gray loam of St Christopher's, which is so light and porous as to be penetrable by the slightest application of the hoe. The under stratum is gravel from eight to twelve inches deep. Canes planted in particular spots in this island have been known to yield 8000 pounds of Muscovado sugar from a single acre. The average produce of the island for a series of years was 16,000 hogsheads of sixteen hundredweight, which is one half only of the whole cane-land, or 8500 acres. When annually cut, it gives nearly two hogsheads of sixteen hundredweight per acre for the whole of the land in ripe canes.
Next to the ashy loam of St Christopher's is the soil which in Jamaica is called brick-mould; not as resembling a brick in colour, but as containing such a due mixture of clay and sand as is supposed to render it well adapted for the use of the kiln. It is a deep, warm, and mellow, hazel earth, easily worked; and though its surface soon grows dry after rain, the under stratum retains a considerable degree of moisture in the driest weather; with this advantage, too, that even in the wettest season it seldom requires trenching. Plant-canées, by which are meant canes of the first growth, have been known in very fine seasons to yield two tons and a half of sugar per acre. After this may be reckoned the black mould of several varieties. The best is the deep black earth of Barbadoes, Antigua, and some other of the windward islands; but there is a species of this mould in Jamaica that is but little, if any thing, inferior to it, which abounds with limestone and flint on a substratum of soapy marle. Black mould on clay is more common; but as the mould is generally shallow, and the clay stiff and retentive of water, this last sort of land requires great labour, both in ploughing and trenching, to render it profitable. When manured and properly pulverized, it becomes very productive. It is unnecessary to attempt a minute description of all the other soils which are found in these islands. There is, however, a peculiar sort of land on the north side of Jamaica, chiefly in the parish of Trelawney, that cannot be passed over unnoticed, not only on account of its scarcity, but its value; few soils producing finer sugars, or such as answer so well in the pan; an expression signifying a greater return of refined sugar than common. The land alluded to is generally of a red colour; the shades of which, however, vary considerably from a deep chocolate to a rich scarlet; in some places it approaches to a bright yellow, but it is everywhere remarkable, when first turned up, for a glossy or shining surface, and if wetted stains the fingers like paint.
As in every climate there is a season more favourable for vegetation than others, it is of great importance that plants for seed be committed to the ground at the commencement of this season. As the cane requires a great deal of moisture to bring it to maturity, the properest season for planting it is in the months of September and October, when the autumnal rains commence, that it may be sufficiently luxuriant to shade the ground before the dry weather sets in. Thus the root is kept moist, and the crop is ripe for the mill in the beginning of the ensuing year. Canes planted in the month of November, or later in the season, lose the advantage of the autumnal rains; and if often happens that dry weather in the beginning of the ensuing year retards their vegetation until the vernal or May rains set in, when they sprout both at the roots and the joints; so that by the time they are cut the field is loaded with unripe suckers instead of sugar-canées. A January plant, however, commonly turns out well; but canes planted very late in the spring, though they have the benefit of the May rains, seldom answer expectation; for they generally come in unseasonably, and throw the ensuing crops out of regular rotation. They are therefore frequently cut before they are ripe; or, if the autumnal season sets in early, are cut in wet weather, which has probably occasioned them to spring afresh. In either case the effect is the same: the juice is unconcocted, and all the sap being in motion, the root is deprived of its natural nourishment, to the great injury of the ratoon. The chief objection to a fall plant is this, that the canes become rank and top-heavy at a period when violent rains and high winds are expected, and are therefore frequently lodged before they are fit to be cut.
The sugar-cane is propagated by the top-shoots, which are cut from the tops of the old canes. The usual method of planting in the West Indies is this. The quantity of land intended to be planted, being cleared of weeds and other encumbrances, is first divided into several plats of certain dimensions, commonly from fifteen to twenty acres each; the spaces between each plat or division are left wide enough for roads, for the convenience of carting, and are called intervals. Each plat is then subdivided, by means of a line and wooden pegs, into small squares of about three feet and a half. Sometimes, indeed, the squares are a foot larger, but this circumstance makes but little difference. The negroes are then placed in a row in the first line, one to a square, and directed to dig out with their hoes the several squares, commonly to the depth of five or six inches. The mould which is dug up being formed into a bank at the lower side, the excavation or cane-hole seldom exceeds fifteen inches in width at the bottom, and two feet and a half at the top. The negroes then fall back to the next line, and proceed as before. Thus the several squares between each line are formed into a trench of much the same dimensions with that which is made by the plough. An able negro will dig from 100 to 120 of these holes for his day's work of ten hours; but if the land has been previously ploughed and lain fallow, the same negro will dig nearly double the number in the same time.
The cane-holes or trench being now completed, whether by the plough or by the hoe, and the cuttings selected for planting, which are commonly the tops of the canes that have been ground for sugar (each cutting containing five or six gems), two of them are sufficient for a cane-hole of the dimensions described. These, being placed longitudinally in the bottom of the hole, are covered with mould about two inches deep, the rest of the bank being intended for future use. In twelve or fourteen days the young sprouts begin to appear, and as soon as they rise a few inches above the ground, they are, or ought to be, carefully cleared of weeds, and furnished with an addition of mould from the banks. This is usually performed by the hand. At the end of four or five months the banks are wholly levelled, and the spaces between the rows carefully hoe-ploughed. Frequent cleanings, while the canes are young, are indeed so essentially necessary, that no other merit in an overseer can compensate for the want of attention in this particular. A careful manager will remove at the same time all the lateral shoots or suckers that spring up after the canes begin to joint, as they seldom come to maturity, and draw nourishment from the original plants.
"In the cultivation of other lands, in Jamaica especially," says Mr Edwards, the elegant historian of the West Indies, whose superior excellence has induced us frequently to refer him in the course of this article, "the plough has been introduced of late years, and in some few cases to great advantage; but it is not every soil or situation that
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1 Edwards's History of the West Indies, vol. ii. will admit the use of the plough, some lands being much too stony, and others too steep; and I am sorry I have occasion to remark, that a practice commonly prevails in Jamaica, on properties where this auxiliary is used, which would exhaust the finest lands in the world. It is that of ploughing, then cross-ploughing, round-ridging, and harrowing the same lands from year to year, or at least every other year, without affording manure. Accordingly it is found that this method is utterly destructive of the ratoon or second growth, and altogether ruinous. It is indeed astonishing that any planter of common reading or observation should be passive under so pernicious a system.
Some gentlemen, however, of late manage better; their practice is to break up stiff and clayey land, by one or two ploughings, early in the spring, and give it a summer's fallow. In the autumn following, being then mellow and more easily worked, it is holed and planted by manual labour after the old method, which has been already described. But, in truth, the only advantageous system of ploughing in the West Indies is to confine it to the simple operation of holing, which may certainly be performed with much greater facility and despatch by the plough than by the hoe; and the relief which, in the case of stiff and dry soils, is thus given to the negroes, exceeds all estimation, in the mind of a humane and provident owner. On this subject I speak from practical knowledge. At a plantation of my own, the greatest part of the land which is annually planted is neatly and sufficiently laid into cane-holes, by the labour of one able man, three boys, and eight oxen, with the common single-wheeled plough. The ploughshare indeed is somewhat wider than usual; but this is the only difference, and the method of ploughing is the simplest possible. By returning the plough back along the furrow, the turf is alternately thrown to the right and to the left, forming a trench seven inches deep, about two feet and a half wide at the top, and one foot wide at the bottom. A space of eighteen or twenty inches is left between each trench, on which the mould being thrown by the share, the banks are properly formed, and the holing is complete. Thus the land is not exhausted by being too much exposed to the sun; and in this manner a field of twenty acres is holed with one plough, and with great ease, in thirteen days. The plants are afterwards placed in the trench as in the common method where manual labour alone is employed.
In most parts of the West Indies it is usual to hole and plant a certain proportion of the cane-land, commonly one third, in annual rotation. Canes of the first year's growth are called plant-canes, as has been already observed. The sprouts that spring from the roots of the canes that have been previously cut for sugar are called ratoons; the first yearly returns from their roots are called first ratoons, the second year's growth second ratoons.
Mr Edwards informs us, that the manure generally used is a compost, formed, 1st, of the vegetable ashes drawn from the fires of the boiling and still-houses; 2dly, feculencies discharged from the still-house, mixed up with rubbish of buildings, white-lime, &c.; 3dly, refuse, or field-trash, i.e., the decayed leaves and stems of the cane, so called in contradistinction to cane-trash, reserved for fuel; 4thly, dung, obtained from the horse and mule stables, and from moveable pens, or small enclosures made by posts and rails, occasionally shifted upon the lands intended to be planted, and into which the cattle are turned at night; 5thly, good mould, collected from gullies and other waste places, and thrown into the cattle-pens.
The sugar-cane is liable to be destroyed by monkeys, rats, and insects. The upland plantations suffer greatly from monkeys. These creatures, which now abound in the mountainous parts of St Christopher's, were first brought thither by the French, when they possessed half that island. They come down from the rocks in silent parties by night, and having posted sentinels to give the alarm if anything approaches, they destroy incredible quantities of the cane, by their gambols as well as their greediness. It is in vain to set traps for these creatures, however baited; and the only way to protect the plantation, and destroy them, is to set a numerous watch, well armed with fowling-pieces, and furnished with dogs. The negroes will perform this service cheerfully, for they are very fond of monkeys as food. Father Labat affirms they are very delicious, but the white inhabitants of St Christopher's never eat them.
The low-land plantations suffer as much by rats as those rats, on the mountains do from monkeys; but the rats, no more than the monkeys, are natives of the place. They came with the shipping from Europe, and breed in the ground under loose rocks and bushes; the field negroes eat them greedily, and they are said to be publicly sold in the markets at Jamaica. To free the plantations from these vermin, the breed of wild cats should be encouraged, and snakes suffered to multiply un molested; they may also be poisoned with arsenic, and the rasped root of the cassava made into pellets, and plentifully scattered over the grounds. This practice is however dangerous; for as the rats, when thus poisoned, become exceedingly thirsty, they run in droves to the neighbouring streams, which they poison as they drink, and the cattle grazing on the banks of these polluted waters have frequently perished by drinking after them. It is safer therefore to make the pellets of flour, kneaded with the juice of the nightshade, the scent of which will drive them away though they will not eat it. There is an East Indian animal called mongoose, which bears a natural antipathy to rats; and if this animal was introduced into our sugar islands, it would probably extirpate the whole race of these noxious vermin. The formica omnivora of Linnaeus, the carnivorous ant, which is called in Jamaica the raffle's ant, would soon clear a sugar-plantation of rats.
The sugar-cane is also subject to a disease which no foresight can obviate, and for which human wisdom has hitherto in vain attempted to find a remedy. This disease is called the blast, and is occasioned by a species of aphid. When this happens, the fine, broad, green blades become sickly, dry, and withered; they soon afterwards appear stained in spots; and if these spots are carefully examined, they will be found to contain innumerable eggs of an insect like a bug, which are soon quickened, and cover the plants with the vermin. The juice of the canes thus affected becomes sour, and no future shoot issues from the joints. Ants also concur with the bugs to spoil the plantation, and against these evils it is hard to find a remedy.
The crops of sugar-canés do not ripen precisely at the same period in all the colonies. In the Danish, Spanish, Dutch, and French settlements, they begin in January, and continue till October. This method does not imply any fixed season for the maturity of the sugar-cane. The plant, however, like others, must have its progress; and it has been justly observed to be in flower in the months of November and December. From the custom which these nations have adopted of continuing to gather their crops for ten months without intermission, it must necessarily follow that they cut some canes which are not ripe enough, and others which are too ripe, and then the fruit has not the requisite qualities. The time of gathering them should be at a fixed season, and probably the months of March and April are the fittest for it; because all the sweet fruits are ripe at that time, while the sour ones do not arrive at a state of maturity till the months of July and August.
The English cut their canes in March and April; but
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1 Edwards's History of the West Indies, vol. ii. Sugar.
they are not induced to do this on account of their ripeness. The drought that prevails in their islands renders the rains which fall in September necessary to their planting; and as the canes are eighteen months in growing, this period always brings them to the precise point of maturity. "The time of crop in the sugar islands," says Mr Edwards, "is the season of gladness and festivity to man and beast. So palatable, salutary, and nourishing, is the juice of the cane, that every individual of the animal creation, drinking freely of it, derives health and vigour from its use. The meagre and sickly among the negroes exhibit a surprising alteration in a few weeks after the mill is set in action. The labouring horses, oxen, and mules, though almost constantly at work during this season, yet, being indulged with plenty of the green tops of this noble plant, and some of the scumings from the boiling-house, improve more than at any other period of the year. Even the pigs and poultry fatten on the refuse. In short, on a well-regulated plantation, under a humane and benevolent director, there is such an appearance during crop-time of plenty and busy cheerfulness, as to soften, in a great measure, the hardships of slavery, and induce a spectator to hope, when the miseries of life are represented as insupportable, that they are sometimes exaggerated through the medium of fancy."
The plants being cut, the branches at the top are given to the cattle for food; the top-shoot, which is full of eyes, is preserved for planting. The canes are cut into pieces about a yard long, tied up in bundles, and carried in carts to the mill, where they are bruised, and the juice is extracted from them. The mill consists principally of three upright iron-plated rollers or cylinders, from thirty to forty inches in length, and from twenty to twenty-five inches in diameter; and the middle one, to which the moving power is applied, turns the other two by means of cogs. Between these rollers, the canes, being previously cut short, and tied into bundles, are twice compressed; for, having passed through the first and second rollers, they are turned round the middle one by a circular piece of frame-work or screen, called in Jamaica the dumb-returner, and forced back through the second and third; an operation which squeezes them completely dry, and sometimes even reduces them to powder. The cane-juice is received in a leaden bed, and thence conveyed into a vessel called the receiver. The refuse, or macerated rind, of the cane, which is called cane-trash, in contradistinction to field-trash, serves for fuel to boil the liquor.
The juice as it flows from the mill, taken at a medium, contains eight parts of pure water, one part of sugar, and one part consisting of coarse oil and mucilaginous gum, with a portion of essential oil.
As this juice has a strong disposition to fermentation, it must be boiled as soon as possible. There are some water-mills that will grind with great ease canes sufficient for thirty hogsheads of sugar in a week. It is necessary to have boiling vessels, or clarifiers, that will correspond in dimensions to the quantity of juice flowing from the receiver. These clarifiers are commonly three in number, and are sometimes capable of containing 1000 gallons each; but it is more usual to see them of 300 or 400 gallons each. Besides the clarifiers which are used for the first boiling, there are generally four coppers or boilers. The clarifiers are placed in the middle or at one end of the boiling-house. If at one end, the boiler called the teache is placed at the other, and several boilers, generally three, are ranged between them. The teache is ordinarily from seventy to 100 gallons, and the boilers between the clarifiers and teache diminish in size from the first to the last. Where the clarifiers are in the middle, there is usually a set of three boilers on each side, which constitute in effect a double boiling-house. On very large estates this arrangement is found useful and necessary. The objection to so great a number is the expense of fuel; to obviate which, in some degree, the three boilers on each side of the clarifiers are commonly hung to one fire.
The juice runs from the receiver along a wooden gutter lined with lead into the boiling-house, where it is received, into one of the clarifiers. When the clarifier is filled, a fire is lighted, and a quantity of Bristol quicklime in powder, which is called temper, is poured into the vessel. The use of the lime is to unite with the superabundant acid, of which, for the success of the process, it is necessary to get rid. The quantity sufficient to separate the acid must vary according to the strength of the quicklime and the quality of the liquor. Some planters allow a pint of lime to every 100 gallons of liquor; but Mr Edwards thinks that little more than half the quantity is a better medium proportion, and, even then, that it ought to be dissolved in boiling water, that as little of it as possible may be precipitated. The heat is suffered gradually to increase till it approaches within a few degrees of the heat of boiling water, that the impurities may be thoroughly separated. But if the liquor were suffered to boil with violence, the impurities would again incorporate with it. It is known to be sufficiently heated when the scum begins to rise in blisters, which break into white froth, and appear generally in about forty minutes. The fire is then suddenly extinguished by means of a damper, which excludes the external air; and the liquor is allowed to remain about an hour undisturbed, during which period the impurities are collected in scum on the surface. The juice is then drained off either by a syphon or a cock; the scum, being of a tenacious gummy nature, does not flow out with the liquor, but remains behind in the clarifier. The liquid juice is conveyed from the clarifier by a gutter into the evaporating boiler, commonly termed the grand copper; and if it has been obtained from good canes it generally appears transparent.
In the evaporating boiler, which should be large enough to receive the contents of the clarifier, the liquor is allowed to boil; and as the scum rises it is taken off. The scumming and evaporation are continued till the liquor becomes finer and thicker, and so far diminished in bulk that it may be easily contained in the second copper. When put into the second copper, it is nearly of the colour of Madeira wine; the boiling and scumming are continued, and if the impurities be considerable, a quantity of lime-water is added. This process is carried on till the liquor be sufficiently diminished in quantity to be contained in the third copper. After being purified a third time, it is put into the fourth copper, which is called the teache, where it is boiled and evaporated till it is judged sufficiently pure to be removed from the fire. In judging of the purity of the liquor, many of the negroes, says Mr Edwards, guess solely by the eye (which by long habit they do with great accuracy), judging by the appearance of the grain on the back of the ladle; but the practice most in use is to judge by what is called the touch, i.e., taking up with the thumb a small portion of the hot liquor from the ladle, and, as the heat diminishes, drawing with the forefinger the liquid into a thread. This thread will suddenly break, and shrink from the thumb to the suspended finger, in different lengths, according as the liquor is more or less boiled. The proper boiling height for strong muscovado sugar is generally determined by a thread of a quarter of an inch long. It is evident that certainty in this experiment can be attained only by long habit, and that no
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1 The account given in the text concerning the time when the sugar-canes are collected, we have taken from the Abbe Raynal's History of the Trade and Settlements of the East and West Indies; but Mr Cazaud observes, that in February, March, and April, all the canes, whatever be their age, are as ripe as the nature of the soil ever allows them to be. (Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxix.) verbal precepts will furnish any degree of skill in a matter depending wholly on constant practice.
The juice being thus purified by passing through the clarifier and four coppers, it is poured into coolers, which are usually six in number. The removal from the teache to the cooler is called striking. The cooler is a shallow wooden vessel, seven feet long; from five to six wide, about eleven inches deep, and capable of containing a hogshead of sugar. As the liquor cools, the sugar grains, that is, collects into an irregular mass of imperfect crystals, separating itself from the molasses. It is then removed from the cooler and conveyed to the curing house, where the molasses drain from it. For receiving them there is a large cistern, the sloping sides of which are lined with boards. Directly above the cistern a frame of joist-work without boarding is placed, on which empty hogsheads without heads are ranged. The bottoms of these hogsheads are pierced with eight or ten holes, in each of which the stalk of a plantain leaf is fixed, so as to project six or eight inches below the joists, and rise a little above the top of the hogshead. The hogshead being filled with the contents of the cooler, consisting of sugar and molasses, the molasses being liquid, drain through the spongy stalk, and drop into the cistern. After the molasses are drained off, the sugar becomes pretty dry and fair, and is then called muscovado or raw sugar.
We have described the process for extracting sugar, which is generally adopted in the British West India islands, according to the latest improvements; and have been anxious to present it to our readers in the simplest and most perspicuous form, that it might be intelligible to every person; and have therefore avoided to mention the observations and proposed amendments of those who have written on this subject. Had we done so, we should have swelled the present article to too great a size, without accomplishing the purpose which we have in view; for our intention is not to instruct the planters, but to give a distinct account of the most approved methods which the planters have generally adopted. But though we judge it useless to trouble our readers with all the little varieties in the process which different persons employ, we flatter ourselves it will not be disagreeable to learn by what methods the French make their sugar purer and whiter than ours. A quantity of sugar from the cooler is put into conical pans or earthen pots, called by the French formes, having a small perforation at the apex, which is kept closed. Each cone, reversed on its apex, is supported in another earthen vessel. The syrup is stirred together, and then left to crystallize. At the end of fifteen or sixteen hours, the hole in the point of each cone is opened, that the impure syrup may run out. The base of the sugar-loaves is then taken out, and white pulverized sugar substituted in its stead; which being well pressed down, the whole is covered with clay moistened with water. This water filters through the mass, carrying with it the syrup which was mixed with the sugar, but which by this management flows into a pot substituted in the place of the first. This second fluid is called fine syrup. Care is taken to moisten and keep the clay to a proper degree of softness as it becomes dry. The sugar-loaves are afterwards taken out, and dried in a store for eight or ten days; after which they are pulverized, packed, and exported to Europe, where they are still further purified. The reason assigned why this process is not universally adopted in the British sugar islands is this, that the water which dilutes and carries away the molasses dissolves and carries with it so much of the sugar, that the difference in quality does not pay for the difference in quantity. The French planters probably thought otherwise, upwards of 400 of the plantations of St Domingo having had the necessary apparatus for claying and actually carrying on the system.
The art of refining sugar was first made known to the Europeans by a Venetian, who is said to have received 100,000 crowns for the invention. This discovery was made before the new world was explored; but whether it was an invention of the person who first communicated it, devised by or whether it was conveyed from China, where it had been Venetian, known for a considerable time before, cannot now perhaps be accurately ascertained. We find no mention made of the refining of sugar in Britain till the year 1659, though it probably was practised several years before; for in the Portuguese island of St Thomas in 1642 there were seventy-four sugar ingenios, each having upwards of two hundred slaves.
The sugar which undergoes the operation of refining in Europe is either raw sugar, sometimes called muscovado, or it is mixed cassonado, which is raw sugar in a purer state. The raw, or limesugar generally contains a certain quantity of molasses as well as earthy and feculent substances. The cassonado, by blood, and the operation of earthing, is freed from its molasses. As exposed to the intention of refining these sugars is to give them a heat higher degree of whiteness and solidity, it is necessary for them to undergo other processes. The first of these is called clarification. It consists in dissolving the sugar in a certain proportion of lime-water, adding a proper quantity of bullock's blood, and exposing it to heat in order to remove the impurities which still remain. The heat is increased very gradually till it approach that of boiling water. By the assistance of the heat, the animal matter which was thrown in coagulates, at the same time that it attracts all the solid feculent and earthy matter, and raises it to the surface in the appearance of a thick foam of a brownish colour. As the feculencies are never entirely removed by a first process, a second is necessary. The solution is therefore cooled to a certain degree by adding some water; then a fresh quantity of blood, but less considerable than at first, is poured in. The fire is renewed, and care is taken to increase the heat, gently as before. The animal substance seizes on the impurities which remain, collects them on the surface, and they are then skimmed off. The same operation is repeated a third and even a fourth time, but no addition, except water, is made to the liquor. If the different processes have been properly conducted, the solution will be freed from every impurity, and appear transparent. It is then conveyed by a gutter into an oblong basket about sixteen inches deep, lined with a woollen cloth; and after filtering through this cloth, it is received in a cistern or copper which is placed below.
The solution being thus clarified, it undergoes a second general operation, called evaporation. Fire is applied to the from its copper into which the solution was received, and the liquid remaining is boiled till it has acquired the proper degree of consistency. A judgment is formed of this by taking up a small portion of the liquid and drawing it into a thread. When, after this trial, it is found sufficiently viscous, the fire is extinguished, and the liquid is poured into coolers. It is then stirred violently by an instrument called an oar, from the resemblance it bears to the oar of a boat. This is done in order to diminish the viscosity, and promote what is called the granulation, that is, the forming of it into grains or imperfect crystals. When the liquid is properly mixed and cooled, it is then poured into moulds of the form of a sugar-loaf. These moulds are ranged in rows. The small ends, which are lowest, are placed in pots; and they have each of them apertures stopped up with linen for filtering the syrup, which runs from the moulds into the pots. The liquor is then taken out slowly in ladlefuls from the coolers, poured into the moulds, and poured into the moulds. When the moulds are filled, and the contents still in a fluid state, it is necessary to stir the syrup, that no part may adhere to the moulds, and that the formed small crystals which are just formed may be equally diffused through the whole mass. When sugar is completely crystallized, the linen is taken away from the apertures in the moulds, and the syrup, or that part which did not crystal- lize, descends into the pots in which the moulds are placed. After this purgation the moulds are removed and fixed in other pots, and a stratum of fine white clay diluted with water is laid on the upper part of the loaf. The water de- scending through the sugar by its own weight, mixes with the syrup which still remains in the body of the loaf, and washes it away. When the clay dries, it is taken off, and another covering of moist clay put in its place; and if it be not then sufficiently washed, a third covering of clay is applied. After the loaves have stood some days in the moulds, and have acquired a considerable degree of firm- ness and solidity, they are taken out and carried to a stove, where they are gradually heated to the 50° of Reaumur (64° of Fahrenheit), in order to dissipate any moisture which may be still confined in them. After remaining in the stove eight days, they are taken out; and after cutting off all discolouring specks, and the head if still wet, they are wrapped in blue paper, and are ready for sale. The several syrups collected during the different parts of the process, treated in the same manner which we have just described, afford sugars of inferior quality; and the last por- tion, which no longer affords any sugar, is sold by the name of molasses.
The beauty of refined sugar, when formed into loaves, consists in whiteness, joined to a smallness of grain; in be- ing dry, hard, and somewhat transparent. The process which we have described above refers to sugar once re- fined; but some more labour is necessary to produce double- refined sugar. The principal difference in the operation is this; the latter is clarified by white of eggs instead of blood, and fresh water in place of lime-water.
Sugar-candy is the true essence of the cane formed into large crystals by a slow process. When the syrup is well clarified, it is boiled a little, but not so much as is done in the process for making common sugar. It is then placed in old moulds, having their lower ends stopped with linen, and crossed at little distances with small twigs to retain the su- gar as it crystallizes. The moulds are then laid in a cool place. In proportion as the syrup cools, crystals are formed. In about nine or ten days the moulds are carried to the stove, and placed in a pot; but the linen is not removed entirely, so that the syrup falls down slowly in drops. When the syrup has dropped away, and the crystals of the sugar-candy are be- come dry, the moulds are taken from the stove, and broken in pieces to disengage the sugar, which adheres strongly to the sides of the mould. If the syrup has been coloured with co- chineal, the crystals take a slight taint of red; if indigo has been mixed, they assume a bluish colour. If it be desired to have the candy perfumed, the essence of flowers or amber may be dropped into the moulds along with the syrup.
The average quantity of sugar imported into Great Bri- tain and Ireland during the last twenty years ending with 1837 is 4,486,014 cwts.; the quantity imported in 1837 was 4,482,578 cwts., which is somewhat under the average of the preceding nineteen years, while the population may be assumed to have increased at least twenty per cent. during the same period. From these facts we may fairly assume, that if the duty on sugar were reduced so as to bring the price within the reach of the poorer classes, the demand would greatly increase.
Sugar was imported into England in the fourteenth cen- tury, but in small quantities. The demand, however, in- creased very rapidly, and the consumption of this impor- tant necessity of life is now about twenty times greater than it was in the beginning of last century.
In 1700 it was 22,000,000 lbs. 1754 .... 119,320,000 ... 1790 .... 181,500,000 ... 1807 .... 255,098,450 ... 1837 .... 432,938,608 ...
Taking the aggregate population of the united kingdom in 1837 at twenty four millions and a half, this gives to each individual just sixteen pounds per annum; a proportion very far below what might be expected were the price re- duced.
An Account of the Quantity of Sugar imported into the United King- dom, distinguishing Great Britain from Ireland, and specifying the Countries whence the Imports were received; together with a Statement of the Quantities and Descriptions cleared from the Ware- houses and retained for Consumption, the Rates of Duty and Drawback, the Gross Amount of Duty, the Sum paid for Draw- back, &c., and the Net Amount of Revenue, with the Gazette Average Prices, at the end of each Quarter of the Year 1837.
| Places whence imported | Quantities imported into | |------------------------|-------------------------| | | Great Britain | Ireland | United Kingdom | | British Colonies | Cwts. qrs. lbs. | Cwts. qrs. lbs. | Cwts. qrs. lbs. | | and Plantations in | | | | | America, viz.— | | | | | Antigua | 56,360 0 2 | 5,810 1 2 | 62,170 1 4 | | Barbadoes | 413,257 2 21 | 32,425 1 23 | 445,713 0 16 | | Dominica | 35,723 2 10 | | 33,723 2 10 | | Grenada | 161,921 2 20 | | 161,921 2 20 | | Jamaica | 901,078 2 15 | 3,221 0 3 | 904,299 2 15 | | Montserrat | 6,694 3 24 | | 6,694 3 24 | | Nevis | 24,269 0 0 | | 24,269 0 0 | | St Christopher | 72,265 2 16 | 1,093 0 2 | 73,359 2 18 | | St Lucia | 31,635 3 9 | 20,194 2 0 | 51,829 3 9 | | St Vincent | 201,185 1 21 | | 201,185 1 21 | | Tobago | 98,893 0 25 | | 98,893 0 25 | | Tortola | 13,634 0 5 | | 13,634 0 5 | | Trinidad | 224,673 1 2 | 70,493 3 1 | 295,367 0 3 | | Demerara | 705,657 3 18 | 67,214 0 4 | 772,851 3 22 | | Berbice | 148,626 0 5 | 1,699 3 14 | 150,335 3 19 | | Honduras | 0 3 21 | | 0 3 21 | | British North | 2,364 0 17 | 1 1 18 | 2,365 2 7 | | American Colonies | | | | | West Coast of Africa | 1 3 11 | | 1 3 11 | | Mauritius | 537,454 3 17 | | 537,454 3 17 | | British Possessions in | | | | | the East Indies, viz.— | | | | | East India Company's | | | | | Territories, exclusive | | | | | of Singapore | 297,923 3 10 | | 297,923 3 10 | | Singapore | 5,019 0 25 | | 5,019 0 25 | | Ceylon | 2 0 0 | | 2 0 0 | | Siam | 18,805 3 6 | | 18,805 3 6 | | Java | 2,677 3 13 | | 2,677 3 13 | | Philippine Islands | 49,118 1 12 | | 49,118 1 12 | | China | 0 0 2 | | 0 0 2 | | New South Wales | 1,042 2 5 | | 1,042 2 5 | | Foreign Colonies in the| | | | | West Indies, viz.— | | | | | Cuba | 125,955 0 26 | | 125,955 0 26 | | St Thomas | 308 3 0 | | 308 3 0 | | United States of | 1,667 0 12 | | 1,667 0 12 | | America | 0 0 4 | | 0 0 4 | | Mexico | 533 1 5 | | 533 1 5 | | Columbia | 110,216 1 26 | | 110,216 1 26 | | Brazil | 0 0 11 | | 0 0 11 | | States of the Rio de | 0 0 10 | | 0 0 10 | | Plata | 7,993 0 24 | | 7,993 0 24 | | Chili | 14,485 0 21 | | 14,485 0 21 | | Peru | | | | | Europe | | | | | Total | 4,260,514 3 24| 222,063 1 11| 4,482,578 1 7 | | Total in 1836 | 4,411,527 0 8 | 237,633 3 27| 4,649,161 0 7 | Quantity cleared for consumption in the united kingdom.
| Description | Cwts. | qrs. lbs. | |------------------------------|-------|-----------| | Of the British plantations | 3,562 | 778 | | Of Mauritius | 522 | 360 | | Of the East Indies | 270 | 078 | | Of the foreign plantations | 35 | 2 | | **Total** | 4,355 | 253 |
Quantity retained for consumption in the united kingdom.
| Description | Cwts. | qrs. lbs. | |------------------------------|-------|-----------| | | 3,954 | 809 |
Gross amount of duty.
| Description | Ls. | s. d. | |------------------------------|-------|-----------| | Great Britain | 874 | 162 | | Ireland | 395 | 973 | | **United kingdom** | 5,270 | 135 |
Drawback paid on exportation.
| Description | Ls. | s. d. | |------------------------------|-------|-----------| | Great Britain | 497 | 419 | | Ireland | 113 | 10 | | **United kingdom** | 497 | 532 |
Repayments on over-entries, &c.
| Description | Ls. | s. d. | |------------------------------|-------|-----------| | Great Britain | 1,936 | 0 | | Ireland | 102 | 5 | | **United kingdom** | 1,203 | 6 |
Net amount of revenue.
| Description | Ls. | s. d. | |------------------------------|-------|-----------| | Great Britain | 364 | 807 | | Ireland | 395 | 757 | | **United kingdom** | 4,760 | 564 |
Rates of duty per cwt.
| Description | Ls. | s. d. | |------------------------------|-------|-----------| | British plantations and Mauritius | 1 | 4 | | Any British possessions in the East Indies into which the importation of foreign sugar is prohibited | 1 | 4 | | Of other British possessions in the East Indies | 1 | 2 | | Foreign | 3 | 0 |
Average price per cwt. according to the London Gazette.
| Month | Ls. | s. d. | |------------------|-------|-----------| | March 1837 | 1 | 18 0½ | | June | 2 | 1 6½ | | September | 2 | 3 7½ | | December | 1 | 15 5½ |