92 



are employed to push the cane cars. The gravity system is also used 

 to some extent where the mill can be located on a lower level than the 

 cane fields. The cars come down full of cane, controlled and helped 

 over the level places by one man to each car, and are drawn back 

 to the fields empty, in trains of five to ten, by work animals. Wliere 

 tramways are not available and for long hauls, light four-wheeled 

 wagons having a capacity of about 2 tons of cane, drawn by two 

 animals, are often employed. The primitive two-wheeled carabao cart 

 is also much in evidence. On one hacienda a steam traction engine 

 is at times pressed into the service and made to pull three or four 

 wagonloads of cane in a train. All the work of loading and unloading 

 cane is done by hand, the cane loader not yet having made its appearance 

 in this country. 



COST OF CUTTING THE CANE AND TRANSPORTING IT TO THE MILL. 



The cost of cutting cane when paid for by contract ranges from 12.5 

 to 20 centavos per picul (1.98 pesos to 3.16 pesos per metric ton) of 

 sugar produced, according to the size and quality of the cane, the 

 value of labor in the vicinit}-, and the planter's reputation for requiring 

 careful and thorough cutting. 



One man can, on the average, cut cane equivalent to about 2^ piculs of sugar 

 during the course of a day, which taking the average wage as 40 centavos, makes 

 the amount paid for cutting about 16 centavos a picul (2.53 pesos a metric ton) of 

 sugar, a figure not far from that paid by the average planter. Transportation 

 costs are subject to somewhat greater variation, the lowest estimate I have heard 

 quoted being 10 centavos per picul (1.58 pesos per metric ton) of sugar produced 

 and the highest 25 centavos per picul (3.95 pesos per metric ton), the difference 

 being occasioned by the greater or less distance of the fields from the mill and the 

 facilities for transportation available. At these prices carts or wagons and work 

 animals are supposed to be furnished by the hacienda. If done by day labor, 

 about the same number of men will be required to load and unload cane carts and 

 handle the animals as are needed to cut the cane, so that the average amount paid 

 out for transportation of cane will likewise come to about 16 centavos per 

 picul or 2.53 pesos per metric ton. In addition there will be needed from eight to 

 twelve oxen ("vacas") and a corresponding number of cane carts for each 100 

 piculs (15.8 metric tons) of sugar made per day. 



MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR FROM THE CANE. 

 EXTRACTION OF THE JUICE. 



Mills. — The sugar mills of ISTegros may be divided into three classes — 

 first, those driven by steam; second, those run by water power; and, 

 third, those using carabaos or oxen as a motive power. Of these, the 

 steam mills greatly predominate ; the carabao mills, or so-called "molinos 

 de sangre," are so rapidly disappearing that, in the course of six months 

 spent in the more important sugar districts, I was only able to see 

 three of them in actual operation; while the water-power mills are 



