" Changes on Sugar Estates." 209 



juice from the mill, and so work dragged on ; the coal 

 consumption was enormous, 25 cwt. of coal being con- 

 sidered a fair average to the ton of sugar. Now, take 

 Windsor Forest, with its present fine plant of machinery ; 

 they can make in the same working hours over three 

 times as much sugar, and at such a reduced cost in pro- 

 duftion that if sugar were selling at the same price as in 

 1865, the clearances would be princely. 



I have taken these two estates for my comparison of 

 the workings of 1865 and 1894, simply because I began 

 my career at Haarlem, and was at Windsor Forest later 

 on ; and their circumstances will apply to the colony 

 generally. 



Haarlem, as I have already said, was a vacuum pan 

 estate, making the then best known quality of sugar, and 

 Windsor Forest was a muscovado. Their output was, 

 at Haarlem, 1,000 hhds. of white sugar, Windsor Forest 

 1,200 hhds. of an inferior quality of muscovado. Let us 

 reverse it and say Windsor Forest had the vacuum pan, 

 and where do the great improvements come in ? Well, 

 let us take the supply of canes for the mill and the crushing 

 power at that date. The mill had only 16 punts and 3 

 mules to supply it with canes, and it was capable of 

 crushing canes to give 1,600 gallons of juice per hour, 

 extrafting about 60 per cent, of the juice from the canes, 

 but it too often had to hold on for canes, or wait for 

 room in the clarifier loft. To-day the mills, 2 in number, 

 doing double crushing, can crush to give 3,500 gallons 

 per hour, and not a hitch as regards the supply of canes. 

 In 1865 the pan had to work night and day to get the 

 day's grinding converted into sugar : to-day things are 

 so evenly balanced, that with the triples and pan the 



