SUGAR.
There have, until recently, been but two general sources of our supply of sugar—the sugar-cane of the South, and the sugar-maple of the North. Beet-sugar will not be extensively manufactured in this country. We now have added the Sorgho, or Chinese sugar-cane, and the Imphee, or African sugar-cane, adapted to the North and the South, flourishing wherever Indian corn will grow, and raised as easily and surely, and much in the same way. Of the methods of making sugar from the old sugar-cane of the South, we need give no account. It is not an article of general domestic manufacture. It is made on a large scale on plantations, and is in itself simple, and easily learned by the few who become sugar-planters.
The process of manufacturing sugar from the maple-tree is very simple and everywhere known. It is to be regretted that our sugar-maples are being so extensively destroyed, and that those we pretend to keep for sugar-orchards are so unmercifully hacked up, in the process of extracting the sap. To so tap the trees as to do them the least possible injury, is a matter of much importance. Whether it should be done by boring and plugging up with green maple-wood after the season is over, or be done by cutting a small gash with an axe and leaving open, has been a disputed point. Many prefer the axe, and think the tree will be less blackened in the wood, and will last longer, provided it be judiciously performed. Cut a small, smooth gash; one year tap the tree low, and another high, and on alternate sides; scatter the wounds, made from year to year, as much as possible. Another process of tapping is now most popular with all who have tried it. Bore into the tree half an inch, with a bit not larger than an inch, slanting slightly up, that standing sap or water may not blacken the wood. Make the spout out of hoop-iron one and a fourth inches wide; cut the iron, with a cold chisel, into pieces four inches long; grind one end sharp; lay the pieces over a semicircular groove in a stick of hard wood, and place an iron rod on it lengthwise over the groove—slight blows with a hammer will bend it. These can be driven into the bark, below the hole made by the bit. They need not extend to the wood, and hence make no wound at all. If the wound dries before the season is over, deepen it a little by boring again, or by taking out a small piece with a gouge. This process will injure the trees less than any other. The spouts will be cheaper than wooden ones, and may last twenty years. Always hang buckets on wrought nails, that may be drawn out. Buckets made of tin, to hold three or four gallons, need cost only about twenty-five cents each, and, with good care, may last twenty years. A crook in the wire of the rim will make a good place to hang upon the nail. A hole bored in the ear of other buckets will answer the same purpose. In all windy situations, the bucket must be near the end of the spout, or much will be lost by being blown over by the wind. Great care to keep all vessels used, clean and sweet, and not burn the sugar in finishing it, will enable any one to succeed in making good maple-sugar. The various forms in which it is put up, and the manner of draining, are familiar to all makers. It is only necessary to add, that there are few small farms on which the sugar-maple will grow, where there might not be raised two or three hundred maples, within fifteen or twenty years, that would add greatly to the beauty, comfort, and value of the farm. On the highway as shade-trees, or on the side of lots, they would be very ornamental and profitable, without doing injury. We can not too strongly recommend raising sugar-maples. Always cultivate trees that will bear fruit, yield sugar, or be good for timber.
Sorgho, or Chinese sugar-cane, is raised much as Indian corn—only, it will bear some ten or twelve stalks in a hill, instead of three or four. In all parts of our continent, it produces enormous crops of stalks. The trials thus far indicate, that the quantity of saccharine matter it contains is not quite equal to that of the common sugar-cane; but, with the necessary facilities for manufacturing, it makes quite as good sugar and as fine sirups as the other cane. Suitable machinery, that need not be expensive, owned by a neighborhood of farmers, may enable all Northern men, where other cane will not grow, to make their own sugar cheaper than to buy. But it will be made probably by large establishments as other sugar. We give no method of making it. The subject is so new, that every method of manufacture finds its way into all the newspapers, and what might appear the best to-day would be quite antiquated to-morrow. We have seen as fine sugars and sirups, of all the different grades, made from this new cane, as any others we have ever tasted. The question is settled that imphee and sorgho will make good sugar in abundance. A few years will place such sugars among the great staple products of the country.