336 
SUGAR MAKING. 
stand in them, there may be the breadth of four 
fingers between your seat and the saddle. 
It would greatly assist the learner, if he would 
ractise riding in a large circle without stirrups; 
eeping his face looking on the outer part of the 
circle, so as not to have a full view of the horse’s 
head, but just of that ear which is on the outward 
part of the circle; and his shoulder, which is 
towards the centre of the circle, very forward. By 
this means, you learn to balance your body, and 
keep a true seat, independent of your stirrups; 
you may probably likewise escape a fall, should 
you at any time lose them by being accidentally 
shaken from your seat. 
Of the Saddle .—As the seat in some measure 
depends on the saddle, it may not be amiss to ob¬ 
serve, that because a saddle with a high pommel is 
thought dangerous, the other extreme prevails, and 
the pommel is scarce allowed to be higher than the 
middle. The saddle should lie as near the back¬ 
bone as can be, without hurting the horse ; for the 
nearer you sit to his back, the better seat you have. 
If it does so, it is plain the pommel must rise 
enough to secure the withers from pressure. 
Therefore, a horse, whose withers are higher than 
common, requires a higher pommel. If, to avoid 
this, you make the saddle of a more straight line, 
the inconvenience spoken of follows; you sit too 
much above the horse’s back, nor can the saddle 
form a proper seat. There should be no ridge from 
the button at the side of the pommel, to the back 
part of the saddle. That line should also be a little 
concave, for your thighs to lie at ease. In short, a 
saddle ought to be, as nearly as possible, as if cut 
out of the horse. 
SUGAR MAKING. 
We are quite assured that there is destined to be 
a radical change in the manufacture of sugar from 
the sugar cane, in this country. As at present 
arranged, every planter has to combine the opera¬ 
tion of raising the cane and manufacturing his 
crop. This is too complicated for most of those 
engaged in the business, besides involving a large 
amount of capital. The machinery for grinding 
the cane and making the best qualities of sugar, 
including the steam engines, boilers, &c., complete, 
cost from $15,000 to as high, in some instances, as 
$50,000, besides requiring the employment of the 
most experienced managers and engineers, at high 
wages. This combination of widely-different 
operations, implies an amount of information, and 
demands a supervision, on extensive plantations, 
which few of the owners possess, and which can 
be secured but imperfectly by employees, at prices 
which they are hardly justified in paying. 
The remedy for this seemingly irremediable diffi¬ 
culty, we would now suggest, premising, however, 
that as the subject has not hitherto elicited much 
attention, within our own knowledge, that some¬ 
thing much more practical may possibly be hit upon 
by the planters themselves. 
The plantations, as they now exist, in the United 
States, are almost exclusively to be found occupy¬ 
ing a perfect alluvial level, bordering some water 
course, as the Mississippi, or its numerous branch¬ 
ing outlets, such as the bayous Lafourche, Bceuf, 
Black, Plaquimine, Red River, and the Teche. 
These surfaces, of course, offer the most perfect 
facility for the construction of railroads; and the 
expense of the excavation necessary for throwing 
up a foundation of the requisite height for the re¬ 
ception of the rails, will be fully repaid in the 
ditches they will furnish for draining. The cost of 
the wood work and suitable flat iron rail, need not 
exceed some $3,000 to $4,000 per mile; and as 
the plantations hardly average this length of front, 
the above sum may be taken as the average 
maximum of cost to the planter, provided, each one 
assumes to build a road across his own grounds. 
The road should be located near the centre of the 
cane fields, occasionly converging towards the river, 
or receding from it, to lessen, in some degree, the 
sinuosities of the track. The cane could be carted 
to this road, in about one half the time that it can 
be brought to the present sugar mills, as they offer 
but a single point, and that, generally, quite remote 
from the centre of the cane. Once upon the rail¬ 
road, a locomotive will move 100 car loads at the 
rate of 20 miles an hour, which would carry them 
to any convenient sugary, within so short a space 
of time, that all objections as to remoteness, would 
be entirely obviated. 
Here then, we have the essential preliminaries 
for a division of labor, between the producer and 
manufacturer. Although they might be 20, or even 
60 miles apart, they would, as regards time, be 
within one, two, or at most, three hours of each 
other. This arrangement would at once justify the 
construction of immense sugar mills, which could 
be managed with vastly more advantage under the 
general and undivided supervision of one intelli¬ 
gent mind, thoroughly experienced in the business, 
than by the planters, whose education and experi¬ 
ence have not fitted them for this branch of opera¬ 
tions; and who have neither the time nor proper 
hands for it, their attention being necessarily devoted 
to numerous other duties on the plantation. They 
would give up the manufacturing to those who 
could do it much more perfectly and economically 
than themselves, while their own supervision would 
be better employed in putting their fields, build¬ 
ings, fences, ditches, &c., in the best condition for 
future crops. 
The manufacturer could afford to express and 
convert the cane juice into sugar, for a much less 
price than it would cost the planter, and he would 
generally be able to make a more perfect and better 
article. The apprehension that this might throw 
the agriculturist wholly into the power of the 
manufacturer, would be removed by the speedy 
construction of numerous sugaries on the rout of 
the railroad, in which, for their greater security, 
the planters might own a controlling interest, so as to 
have the absolute management in their own hands. 
Their investment in the mills would effectually 
balance the power either might be supposed to have 
over the other, and preserve a mutual dependence 
from each. $&***> 
The conversion of the cane into sugar, might 
be done either on shares or at fixed rates, varying, 
of course, with the relative value of the cane, and 
its ultimate product, as these might be effected by 
the richness or abundance of the former, or the 
higher or more depressed value of the latter. 
The foregoing arrangement would enable multi 
