civilized nations, but no excess could exceed that which might be created in colonial productions. However, it is more than probable that the productions of the West-Indies will, for some time to come, decline for want of labourers. The example of St. Domingo seems to prove that so laborious a culture as that of sugar, will not be carried on by free blacks-like their ancient predecessors, they will raise enough to eat, and drink, and be merry, and therewith be content.

We will follow our author for a few moments into a wider field, and inquire how the quantity of sugar which is exported from the countries we have enumerated, is actually distributed. We cannot, of course, follow him in his details, the general results are all that we can state.

It appears that 457 millions of kilogrammes (1,014,540,000 lbs.) of muscovado sugar are annually imported into Europe. Of this quantity,

millions

of kilograms

kilo'ms.

lbs. per head.

21.75 for G. B. 4 for Ireland

France,

Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy,
Spain & Portugal, Denmark & Sweden,
The Northern Coast of Africa, Syria and
Asia Minor,

Besides this great consumption of sugar in Cuba, which Humboldt adds is common to the Spaniards every where in tropical America, that portion is not included which is consumed by the negroes during the manufacture, which probably amounts to an equal quantity.

In the consumption of the United States, he has erred by miscalculating greatly, as we have already noticed the quantity produced in Louisiana. The average consumption in the United States may, perhaps, be placed at 11 lbs. per head, including the whole population-130,000,000lbs.

From a general view, we will pass, for a few moments, te minute details. The statements we now present, will show, that if on account of soil and climate, sugar is cultivated very advantageously in Cuba, there are many countervailing circumstances which greatly diminish the profits of the proprietor. Humboldt informs us, that during his residence on the Island, he took particular pains to examine every circumstance connected with the management. of an estate, and to acquire precise and accurate information respecting the culture of sugar.

He found that a sugar plantation (Yngenio) that would produce from 32 to 40,000 arrobas of sugar, (800 to 1000 hogsheads of 1000lbs. each) required 50 caballerias of land, (each 33 acres and a fraction, altogether a little less than 1600 acres) and 300 labourers. The price of land varies according to its quality, and more particularly in its proximity to the ports of Havana, Matanzas, or Mariel. Within a radius of 25 leagues around the Havana, land is valued at from 2 to 3000 dollars the caballeria, (about $37 per acre); labouring negroes, if acclimatized, 450 to 500, if not acclimatized, 370 to 400 dollars. Of the land, one-half will be in cane (Cañaveral); the other half devoted to provisions and to pasturage. For such an estate, three cattle-mills or two water-mills will be required, and 12 or 18 boilers, according to the construction of the works. The estimate of produce and expense is stated as follows:

Leaving the sum of $30,500 to pay an interest (equal to about 6 per cent.) on the following items, which are considered as the capital stock invested in the establishment :

This estimate will certainly appear in this country an extraordinary one. It will be seen that the gross produce of such an estate is not computed at more than $200 per annum to the hand—a return very inferior to the generally received opinion of the crops on the Mississippi, where, instead of 23 hogsheads, 5 to 7 are said frequently to be made to each labourer. But the other items are more remarkable. Whether it arises from the cheapness of provisions in this country alone, or from other causes we know not, but we should consider $10,500 for the maintenance of the negroes, at $35 to each labourer, a sufficient sum, and $9,500 an ample allowance for every contingent ex

pense, or such as would not be included among the permanent establishments of the estate. This would reduce the expense one-third or $10,000.

On the fixed capital, some observations will occur to our readers. The price of land we need not discuss. The river lands on the Mississippi, and the tide lands of Carolina and Georgia, if they should be applied to sugar, cost much more than the sum allowed for land ($37 per acre) in this estimate; but our high lands, particularly in Florida and Alabama, can at present be procured for a much lower price; 25 or 40,000 dollars (instead of 125,000 dollars) would be considered a very large investment for such an estate. The negroes are, on the other hand, perhaps, estimated too low for the United States. When we consider that the old, the young and the infirm, generally equal in number the labouring hands, perhaps $180,000 would not be an incorrect estimate. The buildings, mills, &c. are greatly too high; in the United States we think $25,000 would cover this expense, and procure good buildings and machinery of the best construction. The last item is to us almost unintelligible-a part of it we should certainly include in the preceding charge, and if a stock of horses, mules or cattle were maintained, worth $10,000, it would be considered a large one, and the annual waste ought to be supplied from the annual income of the estate, and included among the contingent expenses. Let us, however, put this item downallowing for stock, casualties, and unforeseen expenses-at $30,000. Our statement would then be as follows:

32,000 arrobas of Sugar, at $6 per 100 lbs. $48,000 Molasses and Rum,

Expenses,

interest on the following permanent investments.

12,500

$60,500
20,000

$40,500. To pay an

yield nearly 14 per cent. supposing the crop to equal that of Cuba, and

the price to be no higher.

In Jamaica, it is supposed that a plantation of 500 acres, of which 200 are in cane, and provided with 200 working hands, 100 oxen, and 50 mules, will yield 313 hogsheads of sugar, (of 1000 lbs. each) and will be worth, including the negroes, £43,000 sterling, about $185,000. We have not the work of Mr. Stewart, to whom Humboldt refers for this statement, but we should apprehend some error from the small quantity of land cultivated to each labourer, and the consequently small return. We have given above, one boast of a proprietor of Cuba, claiming a great superiority for the soil of that over the neighbouring islands. Another estimate given by Humboldt,* places them nearly on an equality, giving to St. Domingo a small preference. But such are the variations caused by season, culture and skill in the manufacture, that these estimates are not to be implicitly relied on. Yet, taking as a mean average, the production of 1700 kilogrammes of muscovado sugar to the hectare (nearly 1530lbs. to the acre) it follows that 193 square marine leagues (nearly 230 square miles) are sufficient to produce the 430,000 boxes of sugar, which the island of Cuba now furnishes for her own consumption or for exportation-so small is the portion of this fine island that is yet devoted to this culture.

We extract the following passage from this work, because to those who wish to engage in the culture of sugar in this country, it possesses some value, and will serve also to illustrate an opinion we have formerly advanced that while on the one hand the manufacture of sugar must be considered as an operation of skill and science, on the other, it depends upon so many collateral circumstances, that no one should be discouraged from partial failures, or suppose from one or two experiments that the production of sugar is, in our climate, impracticable. All to be avoided is imprudence in the adventure.

"According to the nature of the soil, the quantity of rain, the distribution of heat between the different seasons, and the disposition of the plant to flower more or less precociously, the juice of the sugar cane varies in its constituent parts. It is not only as the superintendants or maestros de azúcar say, that the saccharine portion is more or less diluted, the difference consists rather in the relation between the cristallizable and uncristallizable sugar, the albumen, gum, fecula and malic acid. The quantity of cristallizable sugar may be the same, and nevertheless, after the uniform processes which are employed, the quantity of syrup (cassonade) that is extracted from the same volume of juice, may differ considerably on account of the variable relation of the other principles that accompany the cristallizable juice. This, by combining with some of these principles, may form a syrup which has

* Vol. p. 221.

+ Southern Review, No. 6, Art, iv.

not the property of cristallizing, and which will remain in the molasses. Too great an elevation of temperature seems to accelerate and augment this loss. These considerations will explain why, in certain seasons the maestros de azúcar considers themselves as bewitched, because with the same care they cannot make the same quantity of sugar; they explain also why from portions of the same juice, by modifying the process, the degrees of heat for instance, and the rapidity of the boiling, more or less syrup is obtained. It cannot be too often repeated, it is not alone from the construction and arrangement of the furnace and the boilers, that great advantages may be expected in the fabrication of sugar, but from the amelioration of the chemical processes, from the more intimate knowledge of the modes of action of lime, of alkaline substances, of animal charcoal, and from the exact determination of the maxima of temperature to which the juice ought to be successively exposed in the different boilers.To ameliorate the technical processes in the sugar mills, it would be necessary to begin on several estates, and have analyzed by a chemist who understands the actual state of vegetable chemistry, small quantities of juice taken from different soils, and in different seasons, and from different varieties of the cane; without this preliminary labour, undertaken by one recently from one of the most celebrated laboratories of Europe, and possessing a thorough knowledge of the fabrication of the sugar from the beet, some partial improvements may be obtained, but the fabrication of sugar from the cane, will remain what it is at present-the result of conjectural experiments, more or less successful.-Humboldt, vol. i. p. 216.

*

We had scarcely expressed the opinion, that the phrase "sugar not cristallizable" (molasses sweets it is sometimes called) might one day be obliterated from our vocabulary, when in one of our public journals, there was published from the "London Register of Arts," an account of a patent granted to Messrs. Beale and Porter for "a new method of applying heat."

The principle of this process is to use some fluid substance, as the medium of communicating heat to other substances. Double vessels are used with a small intermediate space into which the liquid medium is introduced. Water boils at 212° Fahr.; spirits of turpentine at 316°. Naptha, petrolium, and other fluids of various qualities and densities are found up to tar, so that different kinds may be obtained, whose boiling points vary between 200 and 700° of Fahrenheit. If this experiment should succeed and not prove too expensive, by a judicious selection of an interposing medium, exactly that degree of heat which is proper may be applied to the fluid it is proposed to evaporate, and this heat can neither be increased nor diminished while the exterior fluid is maintained to its proper height and

Southern Review No.-6, p. 352. + City Gazette of June, 1899.