SUGAE. 



141 



an estate is equally simple. From back to front, and immediately 

 adjacent to the side-line dams, run the two main draining trenches, 

 generally dug considerably deeper than the navigation canals. The 

 small drains, again, cut at distances two to three rods apart, com- 

 mence within a bed of the middle-walk side of the field, and terminate 

 in the side-line draining trenches, being dug with a fall in that direc- 

 tion. The small drains are thus at right angles with the main drain- 

 ing trenches. In the front dam the sluices or kokers are placed. 

 Sometimes there is only one on an estate, but generally two, one at the 

 end of each draining trench. The main draining trenches are gene- 

 rally connected together by a trench running along behind the front 

 dam." 



The processes employed in the manufacture of sugar are as follow : 



The cane-juice is received from the mill into cisterns or boxes, 

 where such a proportion of lime is added as is considered necessary 

 for its proper defecation. It is thence run into a series of cast-iron 

 vessels called " coppers," which are built into brickwork, and heated 

 by the direct action of a single fire in the ordinary manner. In these 

 the juice is, as far as possible, cleansed by means of skimming, and 

 evaporated down until it has reached that degree of concentration 

 technically known as the " striking point," when it is transferred into 

 shallow wooden vessels and allowed to crystallize. 



Bisulphite of Lime. — This agent has been used in the manufacture 

 for the last eight years, but at the present time much more extensively 

 than ever. It is in some cases used even when the ordinary process 

 is followed. There are three establishments in or near Georgetown 

 for the manufacture of bisulphite of lime, so great is the demand. 

 The apparatus for the manufacture of sugar is now wonderfully 

 compact and perfect. The improvements likely to be made will, no 

 doubt, be in the substitution of shallow evaporating vessels for the 

 taches or teaches at present in use. 



As an improvement upon this rude process, separate defecating 

 vessels or clarifiers, heated either by steam or by the open fire, have 

 been introduced on the majority of estates, and in some instances 

 vessels in which the defecating liquor is allowed to subside previous 

 to being run into the coppers, have also been used with advantage. 



For upwards of thirty years vacuum pans have been in use on some 

 plantations in this colony. Of late years their use has been greatly 

 extended, and, from present appearances, it is likely that at no distant 

 date no important estate in the colony will be without one. The 

 advantages attending the use of the vacuum pan are chiefly these : 



(1) A much more speedy manufacture of sugar than by the ordinary 

 process. 



(2) The production of a sugar (grocery quality) which goes directly 

 into consumption, without passing through the hands of the refiner. 



(3) The avoidance of all loss from drainage on the homeward 

 voyage. 



The loss from drainage of molasses of common process sugars is 

 estimated at 10 per cent, of the original weight. 



On plantations where the vacuum pan is used the process may be 

 thus stated : As the cane-juice falls from the mill rollers it is mixed 



