again and stop the fire. Now let it settle which it will do, if boiled right, in thirty or forty minutes.

Many planters object to boiling the juice before it is settled, but there is a second dirt in cane juice which only separates at a degree of heat a little above the boiling point, and if this is not separated before the juice is settled, a portion of it cannot be got out except by filtration, which is a very objectionable process, but goes with the sugar rendering it of a darker color and poorer grain.

In well appointed boiling houses the juice is first boiled in large vessels over a separate fire and left to settle in the boiler from whence it is drawn by a cock near the bottom into the pans. But in small works it is bailed off into tubs and left to settle, after which it is run back again into the pots and boiled as fast as possible, skimming it all the time, until a thermometer immersed in it stands at 288°. As soon as it is boiled up to this mark skip it off into a cooler. The shorter the time of boiling, the greater the quantity and the better the quality of the sugar.

After the juice is boiled to 288 and is bailed off from the pans, it is put into a tub or box to cool and grain. As soon as the grain begins to form on the sides and bottom of the cooler, give it a gentle, but thorough stirring, and then let it rest until cold.

After it is cold separate the sugar from the molasses. This may be done in a variety of ways. The simplest method, and which, next to the centrifugal separator, is the best, is as follows. There must be four or five holes one inch in diameter in the bottom of the vessel in which the sugar is put to cool. Stop these with sharp pointed plugs, about eight inches long, leaving about three inches of the big end outside. After the sugar is cold, withdraw the plugs, and the molasses will run off and leave the sugar in the cooler.

These coolers may be boxes containing about 15 cubic feet* or they may be casks of any size, with one head out, and should be set over a drain, in order that the molasses may run to the tank.

When the plugs are removed, if the sugar runs off with the molasses you must insert tapering tins of the same size of the plugs, having their small ends pierced with little holes.

Another method is to put the sugar, after it is cooled, into vats or

See Dutrone's method in a work by Gcorge Richardson Porter.

boxes about six feet long by three high and three wide having slat bottoms, with wheat straw spread over the slats. The straw prevents the sugar from running out with the molasses. This is a bad fix, for the straw soon breeds a small insect which has the appearance of mould, or fine dust, in such quantities as to hurt the sale of the sugar; besides the straw gets mixed with the sugar.

Another method is to put the sugar after it has grained and is cold, into a barrel or tub, the sides of which are made of fine wire, and giving it a quick rotary motion, the centifugal force carries off the molasses.

This is the best way of all others, but caution must be had in buying a machine. If the inside coat of wire is not very fine it will let the sugar out. The wire should be brass so as not to rust.

I have tried some in bags and find that they answer the purpose as well as wire, but it requires care to get an equal weight on opposite sides of the machine, otherwise the rapid motion will shake things loose.

For a plantation that makes one ton per day the barrel of the machine should be three or four feet in diameter, and eighteen or twenty inches high, and should not have less than twenty revolutions to the second. One of this size and speed, with two men to tend it, is capable of drying one ton of sugar in two or three hours.

This machine is not only one of great utility, inasmuch as it enables the planter to dispense with long drying houses, and rows of boxes and tubs; but its chief excellence consists in returning to the boilers, within forty-eight hours after first boiling, all of the syrups and molasses that do not grain, consequently the sugar of the second boiling is not injured by fermentation, as it invariably is when drained in any other way.

After the molasses is separated from the sugar put it back again into the boilers and mix with it five gallons of settled juice and five gallons of limed juice to one hundred gallons of molasses.* Boil this down again to 223 degrees, and go through the same process with it in cooling and separating the molasses as before, and you will obtain about the same quantity of sugar, in proportion to the syrups, as at the first

The limed juice should be prepared in this way. Mix up some fresh cold juice with lime as you would mix it with water for white wash, and after it has settled, which it will soon do, use the clear liquor.

boiling, and of almost as good a quality. In this way you may reboil the molasses three, four, or five times, each time adding less lime and boiling lower.

It may be said by some that 228 degrees is not high enough to boil the sugar, as it leaves too much molasses. I am well aware that good juice will bear boiling as high as 240 degrees, and the French even boil as high as 216 degrees, but it makes the sugar dark and heavy and the grain imperfect. 228 degrees gives a perfect grain, and light color, and the second boiling is almost as light colored as the first.

Persons who have large plantations will not be likely to receive much information from these remarks. But the new beginner in a small way, who is obliged to do all parts of the work himself, may perhaps be benefitted by them. The principle of sugar making is the same in large establishments as in small ones. We can make as good sugar in a dinner pot as we can make in a large battery.

But whilst the man who works with a mill of two horse-power and makes only 200 lbs. per day affords his sugar in the market at 6 cts per lb., the planter who works with a steam-mill of 40 horse-power, other things corresponding, can afford his sugar at three or four cents per pound.

It seems to me that the most essential qualification for a planter, especially in this country, where we are one day up, and another day down, and the next day we hardly know where, is to be able to adapt his means to circumstances. Although I would not advise a man in carrying his wheat to mill to put his grain in one end of the bag and a stone in the other, because his father did so, yet sometimes, when I have seen a native carrying a stone on one end of a stick to balance a load on the other end, I have thought that, under the circumstances, perhaps, it was the best way.

So let those who have been brought up in sugar making countries, not condemn a way of working because it is different from what they were learned; neither let those despair who are new beginners, because they do not know all the established rules in old countries, but let each man learn the point to be arrived at, and use his wit and ingenuity in getting there.

REPORT ON SHEEP.

BY G. S. KENWAY.

To the President and members of the R. H. A. Society.

GENTLEMEN:-Although I profess to feel as anxious as anybody that each member of this Society should do his duty, especially when some particular duty is pointed out and assigned to him, by the general wish, I felt a good deal puzzled on seeing my name placed a second time at the head of the committee to report on sheep, and it occurred to me that the infinity of other subjects embraced by the science of agriculture might (with all respect I say) have been taken better advantage of. For although in Nature there may be nothing new under the sun, "age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety," and the charm of novelty might have been as agreeable and possibly as instructive to our present meeting. I had determined not to report this season, and incur the charge of neglect rather than twice essay to entertain or instruct a company amidst whose intelligence mine must needs shine with a very smoky light, by the wonderful things that might be said on the stupidest animal in all creation.

But the exhibition on Wednesday and a slight circumstance attending it, coupled with a very friendly request from our untiring president, have prompted me at this late hour, and in the absence of any communication from my comrades whose deplorable forgetfulness I cannot account for, to offer a few remarks-on one single point only connected with the subject.

Three sheep only, very young ones, were exhibited in the early part of the day, owned by Mr. Sea. Two Merino ewes imported from Sydney, and one half breed, reared near Honolulu. These poor unconscious little things, standing there almost unnoticed by the crowd, damned with faint praise if praised at all, and dripping wet with the salt water they had passed through, looked and doubtless felt little and humble enough in the presence of those illustrious bulls and so forth who carry away prizes with such monstrous ease and indifference as to astonish the Judges themselves almost, and could not have presumed to entertain the remotest idea that possibly (and without profanity,) in them and their seed might all the flocks of Hawaii be blessed. Mr. Sea comforted himself delightfully on being at least quite sure of one prize, because there happened to be no competition. It was

quite a pleasure to hear him. Yet his confidence might have stood on higher ground, for as far as I am able to judge, his sheeep had finer wool and prettier forms, and were better bred than any I have seen before on the Islands. But to his sudden consternation, there appeared later in the day two large black beasts of a foreign breed and very mysterious pedigree, intending of course to compete for the prize. They reminded me of many things, but chiefly of that serious and quaintly proposed query in the old nursery rhyme which I could not help repeating to myself" Ba! Ba! black sheep-have ye any wool?" Something of the sort covered their big carcases, and very likely enclosed the making of capital mutton.

Now this is the point I am striving to come at. Are we going to raise sheep on these Islands for mutton alone, or for mutton and wool? That is the question. For we can have good wool, and good mutton, first rate mutton inside it. And we can raise enough sheep on these Islands to make mutton a drug, which wool never can be. And we can set heads to plan and hands to work, as well as mouths to feed on the produce of our pastures, and point to our stock not with the grunt of an alderman gloating over a turtle, but with the pride of intelligence endeavoring to approach perfection.

Wool from Waimea has been sent to Sydney during the last year and with very good result. It is the opinion of an old colonial wool grower, Mr. Sparkes, that finer wool can be raised here than in Australia, and that the pasturage and grounds, though limited, are better. And I know that he speaks from the trials he has already been able to make in improvement by care and breeding.

Then, let us not "yield the easily persuaded eyes" to the charming visions of mere huge mutton. But, beginning at the beginning, let us ascertain and acknowledge our true deficiencies and set about repairing them in such a way that it shall not be said in after years we started on the wrong road and got so far that we don't know our way back. Now is the time to consider and determine what we ought to do and can do, for

“In the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent."

P. S. In speaking of Mr. Sea's sheep, I do not wish it understood as my opinion that they are the best on the Islands. Other parties,