170 SUGAR MAKING AT HOME. 
ers still adhere to the more simple appliances, and with a 
very marked degree of success and profit. Here also large 
works will not interfere with those conducted on a very 
moderate scale, if the latter be managed with skill and pru- 
dence. In fact, the expense of transporting large quanti- 
ties of cane from different parts of an extended area of 
country to one great central manufactory is a source of 
great loss in many respects, which is scarcely balanced by 
the advantages accruing to a great concentration of capi- 
tal and skill. 
There is a large class of persons in our country having 
lands well adapted to sugar growing, and possessed of 
sufficient energy and intelligence, whose means or oppor- 
tunities do not permit them to engage largely in this pur- 
suit, but who would be glad to have it within their power 
to work up the cane which they could grow upon their own 
ands; and it is just this class of persons—farmers of in- 
telligence and energy, desirous of making use of all avail- 
able means of enhancing their own comfort, profit, and 
independence, who have thus far, under so many discour- 
aging circumstances, lent their aid to this enterprise, while 
capitalists have been lagging in the rear. 
The question is often asked by such, How can the planter 
work up to advantage a crop of from ten to twenty acres 
of cane on his own land and under his own care—con- 
ducting the whole series of operations, beginning with the 
working of the soil, and the planting of the seed, and 
ending with the production of a good article 6f brown 
sugar? The answer that I shall give to this inquiry is 
based entirely upon my own observation and experience. 
By pursuing the method of cultivation referred to in a 
former part of this work, fifteen to twenty acres of cane 
can be well attended to by a single hand, from the time of 
‘planting until the close of the period of cultivation; or in 
lat. 40°, from the 20th of April until the close of June, 
