When the planted canes are ripe, they are cut close above the ground, by an oblique section, into lengths of 3 or 4 feet, and transported in bundles to the mill-house. If the roots be then cut off, a few inches below the surface of the soil, and covered up with fine mould, they will push forth more prolific offsets or rattoons, than when left projecting in the common way.
OF SUGAR MILLS.
The first machines employed to squeeze the canes, were mills similar to those which serve to crush apples in some cider districts, or somewhat like tan-mills. In the centre of a circular area, of about 7 or 8 feet in diameter, a vertical heavy wheel was made to revolve on its edge, by attaching a horse to a cross beam projecting horizontally from it, and making it move in a circular path. The cane pieces were strewed on the somewhat concave bed in the path of the wheel, and the juice expressed flowed away through a channel or gutter in the lowest part. This machine was tedious and unproductive. It was replaced by the vertical cylinder-mill of Gonzales de Velosa; which has continued till modern times, with little variation of external form, but is now generally superseded by the sugar-mill with horizontal cylinders.
Specification of, and Observations on, the Construction and Use of the best Horizontal Sugar-mill.
[Fig. 1075.] Front elevation of the entire mill. [Fig. 1076.] Horizontal plan. [Fig. 1077.] End elevation. [Fig. 1078.] Diagram, showing the dispositions of the feeding and delivering rollers, feeding board, returner, and delivering board.
[Fig. 1075.] A, A, solid foundation of masonry; B, B, bed plate; C, C, headstocks or standards; D, main shaft (seen only in [fig. 1076.]); E, intermediate shaft; F, F, plummer-blocks of main shaft D, (seen only in [fig. 1076.]); H, driving pinion on the fly-wheel shaft of engine; I, first motion mortise wheel driven by the pinion; K, second motion pinion, on the same shaft; L, second motion mortise-wheel, on the main shaft; M, brays of wood, holding the plummer-blocks for shaft D; N, wrought-iron straps connecting the brays to the standards C, C; O, O, regulating screws for the brays; P, top roller and gudgeons; Q and R, the lower or feeding and delivering rollers; S, clutch for the connexion of the side of lower rollers Q and R, to the main shaft (seen only in [fig. 1076.]); T, T, the drain gutters of the mill-bed (seen only in [fig. 1076.]).
The same letters of reference are placed respectively on the same parts of the mill in each of [figs. 1075], [1076], and [1077.]