On Sugar Canes. 121 



may cut the rattoons in eleven or twelve months ; the 

 plants generally give about three tons of sugar per acre. 



Transparent, or Mont- Blank cane. This cane re- 

 quires the same culture as the ribbon cane, it however 

 makes a light coloured sugar, and about the same quan- 

 tity. 



Creole cane. They take a much longer time to ripen 

 than any other, the plant requires to be eighteen months old 

 before they are cut, and the rattoons sixteen, they have 

 been known to Rattoon thirty years, the sugar made from 

 them is of a very fine quality, and the plants yield from 

 one and a half, to two tons per acre. 



On refining the cane juice previous to boiling. Take 

 a quantity of the inner bark of the bastard cedar (Butro- 

 ma Guazuma, of Brown) and rub it in a bucket of cane 

 juice until it produces a mixture of the consistence of 

 starch ; but if mixed with water, of the consistence of 

 the white of ^gg y then throw into the grand copper, as 

 soon as the cane-juice begins to simmer, four gallons of 

 the mixture, to every hundred of the cane juice, which 

 causes all the dirt to rise to the top in ten or fifteen mi- 

 nutes ; and that skimmed off, leaves the liquor perfectly 

 pure, and consequently does not requhe any skimming 

 in the other coppers. It was at first feared that the grain 

 of sugar prepared in this manner would sofren in an 

 European passage ; but experience has proved that it 

 remains as firm as that made in the old manner. The 

 mode by means of the bastard cedar bark, is particu- 

 larly adapted to those properties which make a dark 

 heavy sugar ; as it has made a difference of 10/. ster- 

 ling per cwt. in the sale of some, thus circumstanced. 



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