SUGAR CANE. 
67 
The curing-house, where the business of sugar- 
making is completed, is described as a large airy 
building, provided with a large molasses cistern ; 
over which there is a frame of massy joist-work 
without boarding. Upon these joists are ranged a 
number of empty hogsheads without headings, and 
having several holes bored in their bottoms, through 
each of which is thrust the stalk of a plantain leaf. 
Into these hogsheads the negroes put the mass 
from the cooler ; and this part of the operation is 
called potting. Here the mass remains for two or 
three weeks, during which time the molasses drains 
through the spongy plantain stalks, leaving the 
sugar tolerably dry. This is the whole of the pro- 
cess, and sugar thus obtained goes by the name of 
muscavado, or raw sugar. 
