The canes usually ripen about March or April, and the sugar harvest then begins. Men pass along between the rows and cut them down with large knives. Each cane is then divided into short lengths, the natural joints of the stem being preserved as cuttings for future planting. Thedivided canes are next carted to the sugar-mill, where the juice is extracted by pressing them between heavy iron rollers. It is estimated that the average yield of the trimmed canes is from one to three tons per acre, and it takes the juice of twelve or fourteen tons of canes to produce a hogshead of sugar. The sugar harvest is the great season of the year for the people of those countrieswhere the canes grow. To them, and especially during harvest time, the sugar-cane becomes a staple article of food. Men, women, and children suck and chew the ripe stalk; many Black people practically live on it, and get fat, during this time.
The raw juice contains not only sugar, but a considerable amount of gluten. Hence it is in all respects a true food, capable of supporting life and animal vigor.
This gluten has to be removed from the juice, or it would act as a natural ferment, and turn the sugar into an acid. This is done by adding a certain quantity of quicklime to the juice; the lime combines with the gluten, and carries it to the bottom of the vessel. The juice, thus clarified with the aid of the lime, is first filtered, and then boiled rapidly down in large copper boilers. The impurities rise as a thick scum to the top during the boiling, and must be carefully skimmed off from time totime. Indeed, the whole process of boiling is an important one, and requires great care to prevent the juice from burning or blackening. The crushed canes themselves provide the fuel for this part of the work.
The water is gradually evaporated, while at the same time the juice thickens into a syrup. When it is sufficiently thick, this syrup is run off into wooden vessels to cool. As it cools it separates into crystals, and in this state it is put into casks, perforated with holes, to drain. The liquid portion of it, that refuses to crystallize, drains off into vessels placed below, and is known as molasses or treacle.
Beetroot sugar is obtained from a variety of the beet plant known as the sugar-beet, which contains as much as one-eighth part of its weight of sugar. The sweet juice is easily extracted from the beetroot, and when boiled and refined it has all the properties of cane-sugar.
Beetroot is extensively grown for its sugar in France,Belgium, Russia, Germany, and other countries of Europe. In fact, beetroot sugar is commonly known as European sugar. In each of these countries the manufacture of beet- sugar forms a most important industry.
Maple sugar, or, as it is sometimes called, North American sugar, is obtained from the sap of the sugar- maple, a large, handsome tree, which often attains the height of 60 or 80 feet. The tree is a native of Canada and some parts of the United States, especially of thoseregions where extensive natural forests of maples flourish.
The sap of the tree is very sweet; it contains the same kind of sugar as the sugar-cane. The sap begins to flow in February, and, when March comes, parties of sugar-makers start for the forest. They make incisions into the trunks of the trees, and place small buckets below to catch the sap as it flows. To assist the flow of the sap into the buckets, they usually fit intothe holes little pipes made of elder shoots. The sap is collected twice a day, and boiled on the spot in large boilers. Two or three men can usually make, in the season (March and April), as much as 4000 or 5000 lbs. of sugar.
The people of Central America make another variety of sugar from the green stalks of corn.
These, if boiled, yield a sugar having all the characteristics of cane-sugar. It is known as maize sugar, or Mexican sugar.