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The soil of this capitania is pecuHar, and is esteemed the best in 

 Brazil for the growth of the sugar-cane. This advantage, and the 

 conveniences arising from the numerous rivers that flow from the in- 

 terior into the bay, have occasioned the establishment of many sugar 

 plantations, undoubtedly the finest in the country, which have pro- 

 duced immense quantities of that article. The soil most adapted to 

 the plant, and held in the highest estimation, is a black greasy loam, 

 apparently a deposition from the rivers, containing a large quantity 

 of vegetable matter. 



The mode of cultivating the cane has already been detailed. If 

 planted in new soil, it is fit for cutting in fourteen months, but in old 

 and poorer land it requires eighteen or twenty months. When ripe, 

 the canes are cut and dressed by taking off the top leaves, &c., which 

 afford excellent provender for cattle ; they are then brought to the 

 mill, which is composed of three wooden or iron cylinders, moving 

 on their axes in a perpendicular position, and between them the 

 canes are repeatedly passed until all the juice is expressed, and they 

 are reduced to a mass of dry fibres. 



The liquor is conducted through spouts to a large boiler or clari- 

 fier, where a certain quantity of alkaline matter, called temper, is 

 added to it*. Afterwards it is conducted to the largest of a range 

 of boilers, consisting of three, or sometimes four, one less than an- 

 other. The largest seldom contains more than one hundred gallons. 

 Here the syrup boils for a certain time, and is continually skimmed ; 

 it is then laded to the next, where it continues to boil until more of 

 the aqueous fluid is evaporated ; after which, it is laded into the third 

 boiler, and is there sometimes sufficiently boiled without removing it 

 into the fourth. They judge of its consistency by the touch ; a little 



* A lixivium of strong ashes is made, and a quantity of lime is put into the alkaline 

 liquor: or sometimes the ashes are mixed with a larger proportion of lime, and the clear 

 liquor running from the mixture is added to the fluid in various quantities, at the discretion 

 of the negro who manages the process, without one ray of knowledge relative to its nature. 



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