STATE HOKTICULTURAl. SOCIETY. 141 



There is one other source of trouble to our industry. I refer 

 to the Spanish- American treaty. What ever induced the presi 

 dent to recommend such a measure is beyond my comprehension. 

 If I had been in favor of making a trade for free sugar, I shouhl 

 have asked Germany, France, Austria, and Belgium for reciproc- 

 ity by exchanging pork, beef, flour, whisky, and tobacco for free 

 sugar, to the amount of $100,000,000; but to make the offer to 

 take from Spain $100,000,000 worth of sugar and tobacco grown 

 by slaves and coolies, without a possible equivalent, is certainly 

 a mistake. But you need not be alarmed, such a thing as that 

 (;annot pass the senate of the United States; even the free trade 

 clubs of the country cry out against it. 



The general effort that is being made to improve the processes 

 of manufacture of sugar j)romises grand results. The zeal, en- 

 terprise and commendable sagacity that is now displayed, both 

 by associations and individuals, in adopting the most scientific 

 and approved methods of work, give us undoubted confidence in 

 the complete success in our calling, against even the combina- 

 tion of capital and slave labor in Cuba, or the scientific energy 

 and government sui3port of beet grown sugar in Europe. 



I learn that the Eio Grande Company, of 'New Jersey, have 

 adopted the diffusion of their bagasse after it has passed the mill, 

 and have in other ways changed their policy of former years. 

 The bagasse, after leaving the mill, is carried up to the floor 

 above the diffusion room and runs through a cutting machine 

 and dropped into a bucket oi* carrier which is run from its place 

 over the diffusors and emptied into the diff'usors when it is neces- 

 sary to refill them. The diffusors are ten in number, seven feet 

 high, forty inches in diameter at the top and thirty inches at the 

 bottom. The water that is used in this process is heated to above 

 two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit. One of the diffus- 

 ors can be emptied and filled in about five minutes, and to pass 

 the water through the whole number of diffusors in the battery 

 takes from fifty minutes to an hour. This battery of diffusors 

 works the bagasse cut into chips as it runs from the mill, of about 

 two hundred tons of cane per diem. 



This cane is brought from the field by a railroad operated by 

 mules, and carries the cane as cut in the field, seed and all, and 

 it is unloaded by portable derricks. When the cane is placed 

 upon the cars there is a string placed around each bunch, which 

 may contain five hundred pounds each, and the hook of the der- 

 rick is placed in this string and the cane delivered at such place 



