1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



347 



in the course of time another crop is ready 

 to cut. Very likelj^ I am not very well post- 

 ed in regard to the sugar-cane business. 

 Perhaps some resident of Cuba will straight- 

 en me out. I know this: There is a vast 

 dift'erence in the amount of cane grown per 

 acre. Where it does well they cut canes 

 eight or ten feet long; and, by the way, if 

 3'Ou never chewed a stalk of sugar-cane you 

 have missed something. In Cuba, for 

 months, 3'ou will see every man, woman, 

 and child, out in the country looking for ex- 

 tra-large and long stalks of sugar-cane. 

 With machete or a pocket-knife the tough 

 outside bark is peeled oflF; then they cut off 

 the slices and chew out the juice. My good 

 friend Somerford cut oft' a stalk as we were 

 passing near a cane-field, and told me to 

 try it. I suggested that it would make me 

 sick. 



"Sick? Not a bit of it. Sugar-cane nev- 

 er made attvhody sick. It makes folks 



So I took a piece and squeezed out the 

 juice. I was astonished at the amount of 

 juice as well as its inviting flavor. Why, 

 it was not far behind maple sap when part- 

 ly' boiled down. I have seen it stated that 

 the young colored people or colored babies, 

 if j'ou choose, grow fat and sleek as soon as 

 thej' can have plentj' of sugar-cane; and it 

 sort o' seemed to me that day that I might 

 grow sleek and fat too if I had nothing to 

 do but to chew the delicious cane that was 

 growing so rank and luxuriantly in that 

 one field. 



A few days after, one of the bee-friends 

 took me to see one of the great sugar-mills. 

 I should think there were thirty or forty, 

 may be twice that number, of ox-teams load- 

 ed with sugar-cane standing around the 

 mill. Many of the carts had three yoke of 

 oxen on, and some four. W^hy. my good 

 friend, a Cuban cart costs over $100. The 

 wheels are immense in size; and they are 

 made of harder wood than can be found out- 

 side of Cuba. Well, these great carts back 

 up beside a moving platform that runs out 

 into the yard. The cane is dumped on to 

 this platform, or endless belt, which is all 

 the while moving slowlj' up an incline into 

 the works. A pair of monstrous iron or 

 steel rollers chew up the cane roughly, 

 sending out a small river of juice. Then 

 another pair of rollers, almost smooth, 

 squeeze out another small river of juice; 

 and, to make a " sure thing " of it, a third 

 pair gives the last and finishing " squeeze." 

 After it passes out of these last rollers, 

 another endless belt takes it into the fur- 

 nace to -feed the fire; so that no additional 

 fuel is evern ceded, practically, for a su- 

 gar-mill. W ell, now, this juice is very good 

 to drink, as I know by experience. It is 

 considerably sweeter than maple sap. But 

 the nicest drink, I might almost say the 

 very nicest, I ever got hold of, was some of 

 this same juice after it had been heated and 

 clarified a little further on in the works. 

 It was the exact temperature that I want 

 mj' hot water. You know that I have to 



have a drink of hot water halfway between 

 breakfast and dinner, and again half way 

 between dinner and supper. I think Dr. 

 Salisbury said the proper temperature was 

 about 110. Well, this hot cane juice was 

 the right temperature to a dot, and I was 

 particularly thirsty. I tell you it just hit 

 the spot. -Now, do not misunderstand me. 

 I have said a good many times that the 

 most delicious drink I ever found was pure 

 hot water. The sugar-cane juice is nice 

 for a change; but I guess that, for a steady 

 " diet," the hot water would be a little the 

 safer. 



Well, if you think I am going to try to 

 describe that sugar-mill with all its won- 

 derful processes and complicated machin- 

 er3% that make a modern sugar-mill cost 

 from a quarter to half a million of dollars, 

 you are mistaken. I would if I could; but 

 there are hundreds of things about these im- 

 mense establishments that I could not under- 

 stand. The syrup is boiled in vacuum- 

 pans; and when it has been cleansed, and 

 passed through so many operations to 

 get it pure and clean, it is boiled till it is 

 just right to granulate. Then it is run in- 

 to the centrifugal machines that work a 

 great deal like a honey- extractor. In fact, 

 this beautiful modern centrifugal sugar- 

 machine is an extractor; but it extracts sti- 

 gar syrup instead of honey, and does it much 

 the same way. The can itself revolves; and 

 it goes with such lightning speed that the 

 sugar of its own accord levels up at a regu- 

 lar thickness all over the inside of the can. 

 It keeps getting whiter and whiter as the 

 machine continues to run; and finally, when 

 every last bit of syrup is thrown out by the 

 tremendous speed, the dry sugar is ready 

 to shovel into bags. 



I visited two different mills. The latter 

 had just been remodeled so as to embody 

 all up-to date improvements. I was told 

 this remodeling cost about $200,000. But 

 the new apparatus was able to take \\i per 

 cent more sugar from cane than the old one 

 did; and this 1}^ per cent in three months 

 had amounted to $20,000. Besides this, the 

 new apparatus required less than half the 

 number of men to take care of it; so they 

 will soon get their money back for making 

 the change. 



There is something wonderful about the 

 fertility of Cuban soil — perhaps I should 

 say the enduring fertility. A great deal of 

 the land, I have been told, has been grow- 

 ing crops for a hundred j^ears or even more 

 — some of it perhaps three centuries. No 

 manure or fertilizer of anj' sort is ever used, 

 with the exception of what I mentioned on 

 the tobacco crop; and yet this soil produces 

 sugar-cane and many tropical fruits right 

 straight along. On most of the ground they 

 grow very nice-looking crops of Indian corn. 

 The color looks as good, almost, as it does 

 in the best corn localities in Ohio, and a 

 good deal of the time they do not cultivate 

 it at all. They fit the ground, plant the 

 corn, and in that tropical climate the corn 

 shoots up and crowds out the weeds — at 



