78 



with hot water to 30° Baume, is taken into the pan as required. If 

 possible, this is boiled eight hours, and then discharged into crystallizers, 

 where it remains for about six days. 



The crystallizers are circular vessels 19| feet long by 9 feet in diameter; 

 inside of them there are revolving fans, and they are jacketed for 

 steam or cold water. It is estimated that 10 feet of crystallizer space 

 is sufiBcient per ton of cane crushed per day. As the sugar leaves the 

 crystallizers it is mixed, by means of an Archimedean screw conveyor, 

 with the first sugars, and taken by a bucket elevator to a receiver, whence 

 it is run into bags resting on small platform scales, weighed, sewn up, 

 and taken to an elevator which conveys it to the sugar store, whence it 

 is shipped direct to vessels, by means of a tram line of about 300 yards. 



The mixed sugars have an average polarization of 96°, the first sugar 

 being 97° and the sugar molasses 94°. The molasses from the second 

 sugars, of which there remains about 65 gallons per ton of sugar, is 

 pumped into large tanks, and taken by tank steamers to the United 

 States for the purpose of making whisky. The purity of the residual 

 molasses is about 28 per cent. 



With regard to the land supplying canes to the factory, at present 

 there are something like 11,000 acres of canes gi'own by the South 

 Porto Eico Sugar Company on its own account, in addition to the canes 

 obtained from a large number of colonos. On most estates there is an 

 admirable system of irrigation. At some of the pumping stations, petrol 

 engines are used for the motive power; at others, particularly those in 

 the neighborhood of the factory, the pumps are operated by electricity. 

 This is generated at the sugar factory and conveyed by cables to the 

 various stations. Where there is not sufficient rainfall, an effort is 

 made to supply each acre of canes with 50,000 gallons of water every 

 ten days. 



The land is almost in every instance either prepared by steam, or 

 bullock-drawn plows. Where the steam plows are to be used, as soon as 

 the canes are cut, the fallen leaves are bvrned and the land is im- 

 mediately plowed, harrowed, and then, by means of double mold-board 

 plows, furrowed. The canes are planted in the bottoms of the furrows 

 about 2 feet 6 inches apart, the cuttings being similar to those used 

 in Barbados; the water, where they are irrigated, is then run along the 

 furrows. As soon as the young canes are about 18 inches to 2 feet high, 

 chemical fertilizers are strewn on each side of the clumps, and a small 

 plow drawn by a mule is used to throw some of the soil from the banks 

 on to the stools. Until the canes are too advanced to prevent their use, 

 cultivators are worked on the banks, in order to keep the fields, as far 

 as possible, free from weeds. 



