The finest sugar-cane region is the island of Negros, in the Visaya district. This island is about equal to Porto Rico in size. The culture of the cane began there about 1850, in which year the crop was 625 tons. Not more than half its area is cultivated, from lack of capital, but it now sends to the port of Iloilo over 80,000 tons of sugar for exportation. Uncleared sugar-land there is held at $35 per acre, cleared land at $70, the average yield being estimated at 40 tons per acre on new, and 30 tons on old, estates. But the latter give sugar of much higher grade, and need less labor in handling, so that there is no loss in the value of the crop.
Methods of Manufacturing Sugar.
The process of manufacture differs in the north and the south. In Negros the cane-juice is evaporated to that point of concentration in which the molasses is incorporated with the grain. Then the liquid is placed in wooden troughs of about eight by four feet in size, and stirred with shovels until cooled sufficiently not to form a solid mass. When cold, the lumps are pounded and broken up, and the whole is packed in grass-bags for shipment. In the north the process is carried further, efforts being made to get rid of the molasses. When the boiled mass has set, the pots containing it are put over pots into which the molasses drains. If left thus for six months, twenty per cent. of the original weight will drain off. The molasses is sold to distillers to make alcohol, and there is some demand for it to mix with water for horses.
Old Fashioned Process of Drying Black Sugar.
The Iloilo sugar generally comes to the United States, being shipped in the raw state, to be refined there. In Manila the manufacture of sugar has been more developed, and a quantity of crystal grain is produced there for export to Spain. The old method of grinding the cane, introduced by the Chinese, consists in the use of two rough vertical cutting mills,—cylinders of wood being used in the south; of stone in the north. These are fitted with wooden teeth, between which the grain is crushed. Mills of this primitive kind are still in use in parts of the country, but are being superseded by iron rollers sent from England, and, like the former, revolved by buffaloes. Steam mills are also being introduced. In Negros, where foreign influence is predominant, nearly all the mills are of European make.
It may be said, further, in this connection, that the sugar-estates are generally small, not a dozen in the country yielding more than 1,000 tons of raw sugar a year. One that yields 500 tons is declared large. And the lack of transportation, too, greatly checks enterprise. In Negros there are no canals or railroads to the coast, and the annual crop needs to be painfully hauled in buffalo carts, to be loaded on schooners, for carriage to the port of Iloilo. Buffaloes on this island, five years old, bring $30. In Luzon they can be bought for half that price. The wages paid to laborers average about one and a half dollars weekly. But, in estimating the comparative comfort to be derived from this, we must consider the low price of food and clothing, and the primitive habits of the islanders.
The highest table-lands are most suitable for cane-planting, good drainage being a necessity of the situation. The shoots are planted in February, and the cane is cut in the following December or January. In the West Indies the canes are planted widely, and the ratoons, or root-stocks, last from five to twenty years, sending up new shoots annually. In the Philippines, however, the planting is renewed annually, the canes being set much closer. After cutting, the milling should be done in ten weeks, delay causing much loss in sugar. The whole process of milling and planting should be completed by the middle of March, the remainder of the year being left to the growth and culture of the crop.