SUGAR. 



166 



island has had to pass. Granted that, although nearly a fifth of the 

 surface is still either covered with forest or in a state of nature, it is 

 generally too elevated, and consequently too cold and damp for the 

 production of sugar, and that little virgin soil is available for the 

 purpose beyond a few patches of woodland at the back of the estates 

 of the more prudent proprietors. Granted that many estates have 

 been most improvidently worked, yet there seems to be no reason 

 why, with the improved system of agriculture now commencing, a 

 greater variety of manures, more frequent fallowing, and a more 

 careful rotation of green crops, the land now in cultivation should 

 not go on producing more than it has ever hitherto done. As to the 

 deterioration of the sugar-cane, which seems to me attributable in no 

 small degree to the immoderate and uninterrupted use of guano, the 

 steps which have been taken to introduce fresh varieties from Java, 

 New Caledonia, and other countries, will, in the long run, permit the 

 entire renewal of the plant ; and the question is not, at any rate, so 

 much beyond the pale of botany and agricultural chemistry as to 

 justify any serious alarm. On the other hand, improvements of the 

 highest importance, though, at the same time, singularly inexpensive, 

 are now being carried out in the mode of manufacturing sugar, which 

 are certain to lead to a considerable increase in quantity and a 

 wonderful amelioration of quality, and consequently ought not to be 

 lost sight of in any appreciation of the future prospects of this colony. 

 I allude to what is called, from its inventor, the " leery process," a 

 mode of applying monosulphite of lime, by which the juice of the 

 cane is so thoroughly defecated, that sugar but little inferior to refined 

 is produced at a first process. 



The great superiority of the Mauritius sugar arises from the manu- 

 facture by Dr. Icery's process of purification by monosulphite of lime 

 without filtration by animal charcoal. The syrups remaining from 

 the turbinage of sugar when treated with monosulphite of lime give 

 most advantageous results. Under the infiuence of this agent, syrups 

 become purified, decolorized, and crystallized with remarkable facility. 

 Manufactured by this process, syrup sugars have a perfect grain and 

 fine colour, not entirely due to the direct influence of the substance 

 employed, but to the preparation to which the veson or juice has 

 already been submitted, and the absence in the syrup of those foreign 

 soluble matters which are the principal obstacles to the crystallization 

 of the sugars of the second boiling. 



In Mauritius by the processes used, all things being equal, the 

 proportion of sugar from a barrel of cane juice (which weighs from 

 630 to 544 lbs.) will depend not only on the relative richness of the 

 liquid, but also on the various circumstances in which the manu- 

 facture may be placed. The average yield may be taken at 95 lbs. of 

 sugar per barrel of juice, and the average yield of sugar per acre 

 ranges from 3500 lbs. to 5500 lbs. 



Dr. leery made numerous analyses upon the different species of 

 mature canes cultivated in this island, but grown in localities differing 

 in soil and temperature. The result of his observations was the 

 following average percentage of the composition of the juice : * 



* The full details of Dr. Icery's chemical researches are published in detail in the 

 sixth volume of my ' Technologist,' 1866. 



