of cultivating the Sugar Cane. Q69 



a little : when it becomes pretty thick, they stir it about 

 with stirring-sticks for some time, till it begins to take the 

 form of sugar; it is then taken out and put on mats made 

 of the leaves of the palmira tree {borassus ftabeliiformis)y 

 where the stirring is continued till it is cold : it is then put 

 up in pots, baskets, &c. till a merchant appears to buy it. 



The Hindu name of this sugar is pansadarry ; its colour 

 is often fairer than most of the raw sugars made in our 

 West India islands, but it is of a clammy, unctuous nature, 

 absorbing much moisture during wet weather, sometimes 

 sufficient to melt a great deal of it, if not carefully stowed 

 in some very dry place where smoke has access to it. 



Many of the planters prefer that sort of sugar which they 

 call helium, and Europeans jagary, because it keeps well 

 during the wet weather if kept from the wet. It generally 

 bears a lower price ; yet they sav this disadvantage is often 

 overbalanced by their being able to keep it, with only a 

 trifling wastage, till a market offers, particularly when the 

 planter has not an immediate market for his sugar; besides, 

 canes of inferior quality answer for jagary when unfit for 

 sugar. 



The process observed for making jagary differs from the 

 above described, in having a quantity of quicklime thrown 

 into the boiler with the cane juice; about a spoonful and a 

 half to every six or seven gallons of juice, or nine or ten 

 spoonfuls in the boiler. Here they do not remove the 

 scum, but let it mix with the liquor, and, when of a proper 

 consistence, about four or five ounces of Gingeley oil (oil 

 of the seeds of sesamum orientale,) are added to each boiler 

 of liquor, now ready to be removed from the fire, and very 

 well mixed with it : it is then poured into shallow pits dug 

 in the ground ; I hey are generally about three feet long, one 

 and a half broad, and three inches deep, with a mat laid 

 at the bottom, which is slightly strewed with quicklime ; 

 ill a short time the liquor incorporates into a firm solid 

 mass ; these large cakes ihey wrap up in dry leaves, and 

 put by for sale. 



Their jagary is of a barker colour than their sugar, and 

 contains more impurities, owing to the careless manner in 

 which they prepare it, by allowing all the scum to reunite 

 with tiic lujuor. 



The half vissum, or one acre of sugar cane, in a tolerable 

 season, yields about ten candy of the above-mentioned 

 sui^ar, or rather more if made into jagary : each candy 

 weighs about 500 lb., and is worth on tlie spot, from 16 to 

 24 rupees, according to the demand. In the West Indies^ 



the 



