MACCAULEY.] INDUSTRIES. 511 
Sugar cane.—Another product of their agriculture is the sugar cane. 
In growing this they are the producers of perhaps the finest sugar cane 
grown in America; but they are not wise enough to make it a source of 
profit to themselves. It seems to be cultivated more as a passing 
luxury. It was at**Old Tommy’s” sugar field I met the forty-eight of the 
people of the Big Cypress Swamp settlement already mentioned. They 
had left their homes that they might have a pleasuring for a few weeks 
together, “camping out” and making and eating sirup. Thecane which 
had been grown there was the largest I or my companion, Capt. F. A. 
Hendry, of Myers, had ever seen. It was two inches or more in diam- 
eter, and, as we guessed, seventeen feet or more in length. To obtain 
the sirup the Indians had constructed two rede mills, the cylinders of 
-which, however, were so loosely adjusted that full haif the juice was 
lost in the process of crushing the cane. The juice was caught in vari- 
ous kinds of iron and tin vessels, kettles, pails, and cans, and after hav- 
ing been strained was boiled until the proper consistency was reached. 












































































































Fic. 68. Sugar cane crusher. 
At the time we were at the camp quite a quan ity of the sirup had 
been made. It stood around the boiling place in kettles, large and 
small, and in cans bearing the labels of well known Boston and New 
York packers, which had been purchased at Myers. Of special interest 
to me was a platform near the boiling place, on which lay several deer 
skins, that had been taken as nearly whole as possible from the bodies 
of the animals, and utilized as holders of the sirup. They were filled 
with the sweet stuff, and the ground beneath was well covered by a 
slow leakage from them. ‘Key West Billy” offered me some of the 
