90 



The World's Commercial Products 



being connected with a lever, which, worked by. men or animals, caused it to revolve. Now r 

 if a man fed the machine with sugar-canes while the one roller was revolving, the second 

 roller was made to revolve in an opposite direction, and the juice was squeezed out to a 

 certain extent. Some of the early mills, e.g., those of the Chinese, were so light that they 

 were carried about and the crushing done in the field. The discovery of the means of trans- 

 ferring motion made it possible to place the rollers in a horizontal position without changing 

 the direction of the motive power. The great advantage was that the rollers could be made 

 much heavier, and so exercise greater pressure. Once it was possible to use horizontal rollers, 

 first stone and later ribbed iron cylinders of very large dimensions and enormous weight were 

 used, first in the largest factories and afterwards also in the smaller ones. A few more years 

 elapsed, and people saw the advantage of using a third roller, so that the chief factories 



began to work with three 

 rollers, arranged in a series,, 

 the third above and midway 

 between the two others. In 

 this way it was possible to 

 extract much more juice from 

 the canes than with the pri- 

 mitive wooden rollers. One, 

 two, or more rollers are 

 sometimes added, but three- 

 roller mills are very generally 

 adopted. In large factories 

 two or three sets of three 

 rollers each are employed. 

 The illustrations afford good 

 examples of very primi- 

 tive and also of modern 

 cane-crushing machinery. 



Sugar-cane mills are 

 usually driven by steam- 

 engines, although in a few instances, e.g., in Barbados, the wind is still relied on 

 largely as the motive power, and windmills are a characteristic feature of the 

 landscape. Barbados lies in the track of the trade winds which usually blow steadily 

 during the crop season, but even under these favourable conditions delays often occur, 

 and steam has been substituted as the motive power on the larger estates. 



The great increase in size, weight, and power which has taken place in sugar-cane mills 

 has naturally also brought about changes in other directions. The framework of mills has 

 had to be strengthened to a corresponding degree, and the engines have been immensely 

 improved. A source of trouble is mill breakages, which sometimes take place owing to 

 sudden variations in the amount of cane passing through. It is practically impossible to 

 maintain a uniform feed of cane, and various devices, of which the hydraulic attachment is 

 the most important, have been adopted. The hydraulic attachment automatically separates 

 the bearings of the rollers when the strain becomes greater than is safe. Another great im- 

 provement, to be found on even comparatively small estates, is the automatic feeder. The 

 original process of putting the canes into the mill by hand has been replaced usually by an 

 endless belt on which the canes can be placed direct from the cart or truck bringing them from 

 the field. The belt is constantly in motion, and the canes are carried up and discharged into 

 the mill. Where two or three sets of rollers are employed, other carriers transport the crushed 

 cane or megass from the first mill to the second, and from the second to the third, aided by 

 hand labour to ensure the soft megass being gripped by the mills, or by other mechanical devices. 



JAVA. A PRIMITIVE SUGAR-CANE MILL WORKED BY BUFFALOES 



