62 MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR IN BARBADOES. 
The confusedly crystalline pasty mass obtained drains with 
difficulty, and holds back the last portions of molasses with 
great obstinacy. This should be by all means avoided, a 
regular and distinct crystallization should be encouraged 
by collecting the concentrated syrup in deeper vessels, 
avoiding too much agitation, and allowing it to remain a 
longer time than usual before transferring it to the curing 
house, where it should be thoroughly and completely drain- 
ed. Under the present system, the loss of molasses and 
sugar, the result of hasty and imperfect curing, is almost 
incredible. During the passage home, the leakage from 
the hogsheads into the hold of the ship is enormous; the 
bilge-pumps throw molasses almost as pure as that from the 
cistern of the sugar-boiler, and this it must, be remembered 
is not simply an uncrystallizable mother-liquor containing 
the impurities of the cane-juice, but a syrup yet rich in crys- 
tallizable sugar. It is quite distressing to witness such cul- 
pable waste of that which has become one of the first neces- 
saries of life, through the haste and carelessness of those 
who would reap the earliest and largest benefit from a bet- 
ter management. The fact is, that sugar should be sent 
home so dry, that it might be put in bags. It is already so 
with much of the foreign sugar now imported. Stove- 
drying might even be tried with advantage. At any rate, 
the present lamentable and wilful waste of property must 
be by some means or other avoided. 
Again, , the molasses-cistern of an ordinary sugar house 
has been with truth described as a receptacle for dirt and 
vermin. Sufficient attention is not paid to the preservation 
of that which has been collected ; much of it is wasted and 
lost in various ways ; the remainder being converted into 
rum, which, in many cases, from its inferior quality, cannot 
be exported, but gets consumed in the colony, being sold at 
a very low price to the working population, to which it 
becomes one of the most powerful and fertile sources of de- 
moralization and ruin. This is notoriously the case in 
