NO. 5. — 1850.] SUGAR, MANUFACTURE. 229 



in any place in Ceylon. I have fancied that even a small 

 flannel bag-full placed in the pan improved the grain of the 

 sugar in one or two trials, and I found the liquor passed 

 through and through the bag as it boiled. 



The gravity of all the pdni we have experimented on is 

 very nearly the same, being about 9*5° Beaume. Sometimes 

 the mouths of the mutties not having been well 

 protected a little rain water has got in, as we judge from a 

 suddenly increased quantity and lower gravity. On one or 

 two occasions the juice reached 8*9° Beaume. There is no 

 doubt therefore that in practice over a pound of Muscovado 

 sugar would be extracted from every gallon, and I myself 

 think more nearly a pound and a half, by the processes, 

 either of bark or lime, detailed above, and I think it not 

 unlikely that could the trees be kept constantly running 

 (which indeed they could) the extraordinary quantity of 

 180 to 200 pounds of sugar may be obtained annually from 

 every cocoanut tree. How much more ought to be obtained 

 the new publications on sugar making take great pains to 

 inform us, but none of them detail any method by which, 

 except in the laboratory of the chemist, they can really 

 state the true result to have been procured in practice. 



Many speculations of different kinds of planting having 

 been undertaken in this Island, perhaps without due con- 

 sideration of its adaptation to them, it is truly satisfactory 

 to have every day increasing evidence of the fact that this 

 country is at all events eminently fitted for the perfection 

 of the growth of the cocoanut tree. Here we cannot go- 

 wrong, and therefore I consider the subject in this particular 

 rests on the solid foundation. Objections against all new 

 ideas are always raised, and sometimes where we expected 

 to find encouragement we are met with a doubt. I have 

 heard it observed against the probability of the establish- 

 ment of a manufacture of sugar : " Such great numbers of 



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