32 



THE CUBA REVIEW 



THE SUGAR INDUSTRY 



SUGAR BOWLS REACH BOSTON 



Perambulating sugar bowls, mostly made 

 of iron in Norway, are busy at this time sup- 

 plying Boston refineries with raw material. 

 One might almost imagine a bevy of burles- 

 quers come to town. There are the Eva, 

 Edda, Nanna, Frances, Flora, Fannie and 

 Maude, and others less highf alutin' . Why 

 the Norwegians chose such names for roving 

 receptacles is not stated. Anyhow, it is a 

 toothsome aggregation, fits the job nicely, 

 and they seldom go home to Bergen. 



There were received in Boston last year, 

 320,413 tons of sugar, about 95 per cent, from 

 the West Indies. Some came from Java, and 

 a pinch, of the best variety, was grown in 

 Europe. This port, however, does a land- 

 office business with growers in Cuba and 

 Santo Domingo. Practically all the Nor- 

 wegian steamers that creep to a refinery 

 wharf near the South station were loaded 

 either at Havana, Cardenas, Cienfuegos, 

 Matanzas or Macoris, aboutlO days steaming 

 from Boston. Now and then these vessels 

 encounter gales and the passage is prolonged 

 and gets on everybondy's nerves, not forget- 

 ting shippers, consignees and underwriters. 



It is a banner year for sugar, the 1914 crop 

 being considerably larger than last season, 

 when they burned cane in the fields rather 

 than grind it. Some planters have not fully 

 recovered from shock attending reckless 

 waste; they have seen the market soar and 

 nothing to sell. Dollars-and-cents experi- 

 ence taught its lesson and every stalk of the 

 new crop will yield its juice. 



Sugar boats, as they are known in marine 

 parlance, are sweet-smelling when filled with 

 cargo, therefore readily identified while yet 

 a long way off. Should hatches be lifted 

 while the steamer nears port a bay pilot does 

 not have to be tipped what manner of craft 

 approaches. They are a handy type, these 

 sugar freighters averaging about 1,500 tons 

 dead weight carrying capacity. Not so large 

 as steam yachts that frequently call at the 

 West Indies and by no means so immaculate 

 and sleek. A medium-sized tramp stows 

 about 15,000 bags of Cuban sugar, each bag 

 weighing 320 pounds. Tramps generally 

 sally forth from Cuba with a deck load of 

 flies that protest against so much saccharine 

 treasure leaving the island. Flies, however, 

 do not get very far from home and the insects 

 are swept into the sea after pneumonia gets its 

 hck into the swarms. 



A Cuban factory crushing 500 tons of cane 

 daily and operating for 90 days crushes ap- 

 proximately 45,000 tons there being approxi- 

 mately 25 gallons of water for every ton of 

 cane. Many of the primitive miUs are oper- 

 ated by oxen or horses. A hydraulic mill ex- 

 tracts 95 per cent, of the sugar in the cane, 

 the fibre or bagasse being employed as fuel, 

 with six tons of wet bagasse equivalent to one 

 tone of bituminous coal. 



Sugar steamers begin to arrive here during 

 the autum months and imports may be looked 

 for as late as March. Cargoes for trans- 

 shipment to Europe come in bond, the vessel 

 making fast alongside a liner to facilitate 

 transfer. A 1500-tonner looks very small in 

 comparison with bulky transatlantic ships; 

 in fact, a cargo from the West Indies can be 

 stowed in one section of the hold of a Boston- 

 Liverpool liner and then considerabe space 

 remains available for miscellaneous merchan- 

 dise. West Indian sugar cargoes are also dis- 

 charged here and sent by rail to Canada, 

 where two refineries do a flourishing business. 

 The Canadian cargoes go by rail during the 

 winter months because the St. Lawrence river 

 is closed to navigation. Last year's exports 

 of sugar, including manufactured product, 

 totalled 6,239 tons. 



In chartering a sugar boat an important con- 

 sideration is beam and draft, as it would be 

 provoking to send a ship to Boston and find 

 her too fat to negotiate openings in bridges or 

 too deep for the channels leading to refinery 

 wharves. Openings in bridges spanning Fort 

 Point Channel, South Boston, are relatively 

 narrow, which, in a measure, is responsible for 

 the diminutive ships. The freighters from 

 Java are huge affairs that make the long voy- 

 age worth while, as they stow perhaps 10 

 times as much sugar as the fellow shuttUng 

 between Matanzas and Boston with an occa- 

 sional side trip to a gulf port. 



Sugar boats sometimes engage in spirited 

 races for pride of place at the discharging 

 berth. This is to be expected when move- 

 ment of sugar in heavy and many vessels en- 

 gaged in the trade, for the wharf facilities are 

 inadequate to accommodate more than one 

 at a time. So skippers urge engineers to heat 

 her up hot and keep things boiling to pound 

 out extra speed and beat a rival. A lost race 

 may mean delay of as much as a week while 

 anchored awaiting a berth. Discharging a 

 cargo of raw sugar is a job cut out for long- 

 shoremen bred on a beef and cabbage diet. It 

 is heavy work. Cuban sugar weighs con- 

 siderably more than Santo Domingo, packed 

 in 220 pound bags, and the Demarara sort, 

 2.50 pound to the bag. Java sugar comes in 

 mats weighing 60 pounds and baskets of 660 

 pounds. German beet sugar tips the scales 

 at 200 pounds the bag. — -Boston (Mass.) 

 Morning Herald. 



SUGAR CULTIVATION ANNAM INDO-CHINA 



The soil of this district is well adapted to 

 the cultivation of cane sugar, but the methods 

 hitherto in vogue have been so costly that 

 the industry has been unproductive. Re- 

 cently, however, the sugar growers have 

 studied the methods used in Cuba and Java 

 with the likelihood that in the future the 

 sugar production of this country will be 

 largely increased and profitable. 



