Sugar.

43

nufactured

Indies by free men,

"Having been for two years in the English and French West India islands, and since conducted sugar estates in the East Indies; before the abolition of the slave-trade was agitated in parliament, it may be desirof a supe-able to know that sugar of a superior quality and inferior quality rior price to that in our islands is produced in the East

44

and at a lower

price.

Indies; that the culture of the cane, the manufacture of the sugar and arrack, is, with these material advantages, carried on by free people. China, Bengal, the coast of Malabar, all produce quantities of sugar and spirits; but as the most considerable growth of the cane is carried on near Batavia, I shall explain the improved manner in which sugar estates are there conducted. The proprietor of the estate is generally a wealthy Dutchman, who has erected on it substantial mills, How sugar boiling and curing houses. He rents this estate to a estates are Chinese, who resides on it as a superintendant; and this renter (supposing the estate to consist of 300 or more acres) relets it to free men in parcels of 50 or 60 on these conditions: That they shall plant it in canes, and receive so much per pecul of 133 pounds for every pecul of sugar that the canes shall produce."

45

managed at

Batavia.

When crop time comes on, the superintendant collects a sufficient number of persons from the adjacent towns or villages, and takes off his crop as follows. To any set of tradesmen who bring their carts and buffaloes he agrees to give such a price per pecul to cut all his crop of canes, carry them to the mill and grind them. A second to boil them per pecul. A third to clay them and basket them for market per pecul. So that by this method of conducting a sugar estate the renter knows to a certainty what the produce of it will cost him per pecul. He has not any permanent or unnecessary expence; for when the crop is taken off, the taskmen return to their several pursuits in the towns and villages they came from; and there only remain the cane planters who are preparing the next year's crop. This, like all other complex arts, by being divided into several branches, renders the labour cheaper and the work more perfectly done.

Only clayed sugars are made at Batavia; these are in quality equal to the best sort from the West Indies, and are sold so low from the sugar estates as eighteen shillings sterling per pecul of 133 lbs. This is not the selling price to the trader at Batavia, as the government there is arbitrary, and sugar subject to duties imposed at will. The Shabander exacts a dollar per pecul on all sugar exported. The price of common labour is from 9d. to 10d. per day. By the method of carrying on the sugar estates, the taskmen gain considerably more than this, not only from working extraordinary hours, but from being considered artists

46

Transac

The SUGAR MAPLE, (the acer saccharinum of Lin- Description næus), as well as the sugar-cane, produces a great of the sugar quantity of sugar. This tree grows in great numbers maple, in the western counties of all the middle states of the American union. Those which grow in New York and Pennsylvania yield the sugar in a greater quantity than those which grow on the waters of the Ohio.These trees are generally found mixed with the beech, hemlock, white and water ash, the cucumber tree, linden, aspen, butter nut, and wild cherry trees. They sometimes appear in groves covering five or six acres in a body, but they are more commonly interspersed with some or all of the forest trees which have been mentioned. From 30 to 50 trees are generally found upon tions of the an acre of ground. They grow only in the richest American soils, and frequently in stony ground. Springs of the Philosophi purest water abound in their neighbourhood. They are, cal Society, when fully grown, as tall as the white and black oaks, vol. iii. and from two to three feet in diameter. They put forth a beautiful white blossom in the spring before they show a single leaf. The colour of the blossom distinguishes them from the acer rubrum, or the common maple, which affords a blossom of a red colour. The wood of the sugar maple-tree is extremely inflammable, and is preferred upon that account by hunters and surveyors for fire-wood. Its small branches are so much impregnated with sugar as to afford support to the cattle, horses, and sheep of the first settlers, during the winter, before they are able to cultivate forage for that purpose. Its ashes afford a great quantity of potash, exceeded by few, or perhaps by none, of the trees that grow in the woods of the United States. The tree is supposed to arrive at its full growth in the woods in twenty years.

47

the more

It is not injured by tapping; on the contrary, the The oftenoftener it is tapped, the more syrup is obtained from it. er this tree In this respect it follows a law of animal secretion. A is tapped single tree had not only survived, but flourished after syrup is obforty-two tappings in the same number of years. The tained from effects of a yearly discharge of sap from the tree, in im-it. proving and increasing the sap, are demonstrated from the superior excellence of those trees which have been perforated in an hundred places, by a small wood-pecker which feeds upon the sap. The trees, after having been wounded in this way, distil the remains of their juice on the ground, and afterwards acquire a black colour. The sap of these trees is much sweeter to the taste than that which is obtained from trees which have not been previously wounded, and it affords more sugar.

48

Wha quân tity of sap will pro duce u cer.

From twenty-three gailons and one quart of sap, procured in twenty-four hours from only two of these dark coloured trees, Arthur Noble, Esq. of the state of NewYork, obtained four pounds and thirteen ounces of good tain quangrained sugar. tity of su

A tree of an ordinary size yields in a good season from gar. twenty to thirty gallons of sap, from which are made from five to six pounds of sugar. To this there are some

Sugar.

49 This quan

be increa

ture.

times remarkable exceptions. Samuel Lowe, Esq. a justice of peace in Montgomery county, in the state of New York, informed Arthur Noble, Esq. that he had made twenty pounds and one ounce of sugar between the 14th and 23d of April, in the year 1789, from a single tree that had been tapped for several successive years before.

From the influence which culture has upon forest and ity might other trees, it has been supposed, that by transplanting sed by cul- the sugar maple-tree into a garden, or by destroying such other trees as shelter it from the rays of the sun, the quantity of the sap might be increased, and its quality much improved. A farmer in Northampton county, in the state of Pennsylvania, planted a number of these trees above twenty years ago in his meadow, from three gallons of the sap of which be obtains every year a pound of sugar. It was observed formerly, that it required five or six gallons of the sap of the trees which grow in the woods to produce the same quantity of sugar.

50

The sap distils from

the wood

in the spring months.

Is increased

by warm days and frosty nights.

The sap distils from the wood of the tree. Trees which have been cut down in the winter for the support of the domestic animals of the new settlers, yield a considerable quantity of sap as soon as their trunks and limbs feel the rays of the sun in the spring of the year. It is in consequence of the sap of these trees being equal ly diffused through every part of them, that they live three years after they are girdled, that is, after a circular incision is made through the bark into the substance of the tree for the purpose of destroying it. It is remarkable that grass thrives better under this tree in a meadow, than in situations exposed to the constant action of the sun. The season for tapping the trees is in February, March, and April, according to the weather which occurs in these months.

Warm days and frosty nights are most favourable to a plentiful discharge of sap. The quantity obtained in a day from a tree is from five gallons to a pint, according to the greater or less heat of the air. Mr Lowe informed Arthur Noble, Esq. that he obtained near three and twenty gallons of sap in one day (April 17. 1789) from the single tree which was before mentioned. Such instances of a profusion of sap in single trees are however not very common.

52 How the There is always a suspension of the discharge of sap sapis drain-. ed from the in the night if a frost succeed a warm day. The perforation in the tree is made with an axe or an auger. The latter is preferred from experience of its advantages. The auger is introduced about three quarters of an inch, and in an ascending direction (that the sap may not be frozen in a slow current in the mornings or evenings), and is afterwards deepened gradually to the extent of

ge

two inches. A spout is introduced about half an inch Sugar into the hole made by this auger, and projects from three to twelve inches from the tree. The spout is Sugillation. nerally made of the sumach or elder, which usually grows in the neighbourhood of the sugar trees. The tree is first tapped on the south side; when the discharge of its sap begins to lessen, an opening is made on the north side, from which an increased discharge takes place. The sap flows from four to six weeks, according to the temperature of the weather. Troughs large enough to contain three or four gallons, made of white pine, or white ash, or of dried water ash, aspen, linden, poplar, or common maple, are placed under the spout to receive the sap, which is carried every day to a large receiver, made of either of the trees before mentioned. From this receiver it is conveyed, after being strained,

to the boiler.

53

to sugar by

We understand that there are three modes of reducing Is reduced the sap to sugar; by evaporation, by freezing, and by three boiling; of which the latter is most general, as being modes. the most expeditious. We are farther assured, that the profit of the maple tree is not confined to its sugar. It affords most agreeable melasses, and an excellent vinegar. The sap which is suitable for these purposes is obtained after the sap which affords the sugar has ceased to flow, so that the manufactories of these different products of the maple tree, by succeeding, do not interfere with each other. The melasses may be made to compose the basis of a pleasant summer beer. The sap of the maple is moreover capable of affording a spirit; but we hope this precious juice will never be prostituted to this ignoble purpose. Should the use of sugar in diet become more general in this country (says Dr Rush) it may tend to lessen the inclination or supposed necessity for spirits, for I have observed a relish for sugar in diet to be seldom accompanied by a love for strong

drink.

54

There are several other vegetables raised in our own Sugar procountry which afford sugar; as beet-roots, skirrets, pars-cured fram neps, potatoes, celeri, red cabbage stalks, the young many other shoots of Indian wheat. The sugar is most readily ob-vegetables. tained from these, by making a tincture of the subject in rectified spirit of wine; which, when saturated by heat, will deposit the sugar upon standing in the cold. SUGAR of Milk. See MILK, CHEMISTRY Index. Acid of SUGAR. See CHEMISTRY Index. SUGILLATION, in Medicine, an extravasation of blood in the coats of the eye, which at first appears of a reddish colour, and afterwards livid or black. If the disorder is great, bleeding and purging are proper, as are also discutients.