1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



527 



Rico, will be made from it, (cane,) at an expense of 

 less than one shilling per gallon." I hope it will, 

 but I would not^ express the juice at that price; on 

 the whole, I do, and always have, regarded the 

 Chinese sugar cane as a Marus Multicaulis humbug. 

 It seems probable to me that this Mr. Goodrich 

 has more seed than molasses to sell. L. w. M. 

 JVorth Dana, Mass., Sept. 26, 1857. 



AH HOUR ON THE FIRST SUGAR 

 ESTATE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



Every body has heard about, read about, and 

 speculated upon i he Chinese Sugar Cane ; many 

 have been hopeful that good would grow out of it, 

 and, mingling good works with their faith, have 

 planted and tended with care, and are now express- 

 ing its juices and converting it into syrup. Others 

 have been doubtful from the first — have neither 

 planted or reaped, but have thrown discouragements 

 in the way, and pronounced the whole thing ahum- 

 bug ! For our part, we have neither been excited 

 or indifferent, but hoping for the best, and willing 

 to bear a proportion of the expense in experiment- 

 ing, and of the odium which comes so cheaply and 

 easily from the doubtful. No man within our knowl- 

 edge has impoverished his estate in cultivating the 

 cane, or in mills and boilers and fixtures to obtain 

 the syrup, while hundreds have planted breadth 

 enough to obtain a sufficient quantity of cane to 

 make a fair, and perhaps a satisfactory experiment. 

 In this way, it is believed the cane will be tested in 

 a great number of instances, and a safe decision ar- 

 rived at, whether its cultivation will afford syrup 

 and sugar to the farmer, cheaper than he can pro- 

 duce the usual products of the farm and exchange 

 them for sugar and molasses, from the ordinary 

 sources of supply. Even if he cannot do this, it 

 does not properly follow that the farmer should not 

 produce syrup sufficient for his own use, because in 

 that case he saves the cost of exchange, and would 

 not belikely to make any other crop less in conse- 

 quence of this. Some very favorable reports of the 

 products of the cane have already been made, and 

 many others, for or against, will soon follow. 



A few days since we had the pleasure of visiting 

 the Jirst sugar estate, as we believe, in Massachu- 

 setts, and of witnessing the operations of squeezing 

 the cane and boiling the juice, and seeing it put in- 

 to barrels for market. The pioneer in this lauda- 

 ble enterprise is J. F. C. Hyde, Esq., of Newton 

 Centre, Mass. the gentleman who prepared the 

 manual on the culiivation of the sugar cane which 

 was published and_ extensively circulated last spring. 

 On reaching the scene of operations we found 

 Mr. Hyde, and four or five other persons, actively 

 engaged in the work necessary to obtain syrup ; 

 they were aided by a powerful pair of horses, who 

 found the labor quite severe in turning the ponder- 

 ous cast iron rollers which were squeezing the very 



life blood out of the canes. There were also three 

 boilers, from forty to seventy gallons in capacity, 

 over an arch, and under them a roaring fire. With 

 these complete arrangements, Mr Hyde will be able 

 to extract nearly all the juices from the canes, and 

 to learn what their product is, and also what cane 

 produces the largest amount of juice as well as of 

 saccharine matter. He had already ascertained that 

 cane grown on rather low, rich land, did not pro- 

 duce juice io rich and sweet as that grown on land 

 rather dry and warm. This point he will be able 

 satisfactorily to establish, as cane is brought to him 

 to be pressed, from various localities, and cultivated 

 under a variety of circumstances. He had also 

 learned that the canes are sweetest near the ground, 

 and that some three or four feet of the top contains 

 very little saccharine matter. 



Mr. Hyde had been so fortunate as to obtain the 

 services of Mr. Williams to aid him in boiling 

 down the juice ; he having had some dozen years 

 experience in that business on the sugar plantations 

 of Cuba. Mr. Williams arrived at the boiler-house 

 at the time we did, and his practised eye soon de- 

 tected errors in the operations which might have 

 frustrated all Mr. Hyde's efforts. The fire was 

 socn regulated, the skimmer put in requisition, and 

 soon a gold colored foam spread over the contents 

 of the kettles, and all was progressing properly. 

 Various tests soon caused Mr. Williams to say that 

 "he believed it would grain," but we left before that 

 important point was decided. The mill used for 

 grinding or pressing the cane, is so powerful as to 

 leave it so dry as to allow it to be used for fuel, af- 

 ter a few hours' exposure to the sun. The juice 

 obtained gives about one-seventh of its bulk in syr- 

 up, which is thick, sweet, clear, and has a slight, 

 peculiar, but pleasant taste. We have tried it in 

 various ways, and think it would be generally es- 

 teemed for the table and cooking purposes after a 

 little use. Mr. Hyde has our thanks for his lauda- 

 ble efforts in this cause, and our best wishes for his 

 success. Will not some good friend to agriculture, 

 who has more means than Mr. H. can spare, join 

 him in working out the question which he is at- 

 tempting to solve ? 



The Age of Seeds. — The fact that age adds 

 value to seeds may be perfectly familiar to agricul- 

 turists, but it is new to us. A gentleman in this 

 city is in the habit of saving melon seeds until they 

 are six or seven years old, and maintains with entire 

 confidence, that, in consequence, they germinate 

 more readily, and originate more prolific plants. — 

 This theory has recently received striking confirma- 

 tion in France. In 1852, as we learn from the 

 Paris correspondent of the N. Y. Times, a few 

 grains of wheat were discovered in the tombs of 

 some ancient mummies found in the south of France, 

 supposed to have been 2,000 years old. They 

 were planted, and produced the astonishing amount 

 of 1,200 grains to one. The Government assumed 



