Cane Mills; and Megass as Fuel. 49 
to increasing cylinder power — in particular at Hampton 
Court, where an enlarged cylinder gave out so much 
more power than the other parts of the machine was 
calculated to bear, that the crank shaft, 10 inches in 
diameter, got twisted, the fra6ture showing nearly the 
entire length of the bearing and rendering a new shaft 
necessary. 
Mr. SHIELDS twits me with having drawn a picture of 
the evils due to the trash turner without having 
suggested a remedy ! It is now fourteen years since 
I drew the attention of my brother planters to the 
waste of sugar due to bad extra6tion, and I then pointed 
out that in my opinion no single mill could be made 
to deal with such a rough subje£l as sugar-canes without 
a preliminary handling ; the machine known as a " de- 
fibreur" was not then invented, but it has since been 
added to the long list of sugar patents. 
Careful experiments left no doubt in my mind but 
that the cane, like a bloom taken out of the iron 
worker's furnace, required shaping down and that, 
after the first pressure, steam became necessary to soften 
the hard fibre forming the minute juice cells. A practical 
trial, in so far as I was concerned, settled the question. 
And the addition of boiling water to dissolve out the 
last fragment of sugar was simply a question of after- 
evaporation. And this brings me back to the opening 
clause of Mr. SHIELDS' remarks. In my early trials it 
was quite natural for me to do as Mr. Shields has 
dene, and assume that a certain per centage recovered 
was all gain from an £ s. d. point of view ; but actual 
practice dispelled these bright visions, for it soon became 
patent that beyond a certain point the cost of evaporation 
G 
