Sugar 



89 



reaping or cutting machines for hand labour. The great size, uneven mode of growth, and 

 tangled character of luxuriant sugar-canes make the problem a very difficult one to solve 

 satisfactorily, and no machine has met with general approval. Various machines have, 

 however, been tried experimentally in Queensland and Louisiana. Labourers collect the cut 

 canes, tie them in bundles, and take them to the carts standing ready to convey them to the 

 factory. On most of the estates the carts are drawn by cattle, buffaloes, oxen, or mules. In 

 other cases the canes are borne on the backs of donkeys and mules. In the last twenty-five 

 years, however, technical science has made enormous progress, especially as to means of 

 transport, so that nowadays large factories often possess a complete set of easily removable 

 rails, running from the factory to the plantations, on which cars, specially built for the 

 purpose, go to and fro, drawn either by animals or by locomotives (see the illustration 

 of transporting canes in Queensland). In other countries, again, for instance in British 

 Guiana and the Straits Settlements, the conditions allow of barges transporting the canes to 

 the factory. Mechanical arrangements for loading and unloading carts and barges are 

 employed with success in some countries, e.g., Louisiana, Cuba, Trinidad, and British Guiana. 

 Arrived at the factory every full waggon is put on the bascule and the net weight 

 of the canes is noted down, so that the manufacturer knows exactly how much the crop of 

 oach field and also that of all the fields together weighs. This is of great importance, ■ for 

 now the chemist extracts the juice from a certain amount of canes by way of experiment 

 and determines how much juice it should be possible to extract from the whole crop ; then he 

 determines the density of the juice, and also the " coefficient of purity," from which data may 

 be calculated in a fairly simple manner how much sugar, capable of being crystallised, 

 should be obtained. 



Manufacture of Sugar 



Crushing. The oldest machine used to extract the juice from the canes consisted of two 

 upright rollers, about an inch apart. The picture on page 90 shows such a machine of very 

 primitive construction. One of the two rollers was longer than the other, to allow of its 



QUEENSLAND. CARRYING CUT CANES TO THE FACTORY 



