nsiderably reduced. Such wood is usually cut in lengths of 4 feet or 4
feet 6 inches, and the depth of the grates should be kept approximately
5 feet to get the best results.

Bagasse--Bagasse is the refuse of sugar cane from which the juice has
been extracted by pressure between the rolls of the mill. From the start
of the sugar industry bagasse has been considered the natural fuel for
sugar plantations, and in view of the importance of the industry a word
of history relative to the use of this fuel is not out of place.

When the manufacture of sugar was in its infancy the cane was passed
through but a single mill and the defecation and concentration of the
saccharine juice took place in a series of vessels mounted one after
another over a common fire at one end and connected to a stack at the
opposite end. This primitive method was known in the English colonies as
the "Open Wall" and in the Spanish-American countries as the "Jamaica
Train".

The evaporation and concentration of the juice in the open air and over
a direct fire required such quantities of fuel, and the bagasse, in
fact, played such an important part in the manufacture of sugar, that
oftentimes the degree of extraction, which was already low, would be
sacrificed to the necessity of obtaining a bagasse that might be readily
burned.

The furnaces in use with these methods were as primitive as the rest of
the apparatus, and the bagasse could be burned in them only by first
drying it. This naturally required an enormous quantity of handling of
the fuel in spreading and collecting and frequently entailed a shutting
down of the mill, because a shower would spoil the supply which had been
dried.

The difficulties arising from the necessity of drying this fuel caused a
widespread attempt on the part of inventors to the turning out of a
furnace which would successfully burn green bagasse. Some of the designs
were more or less clever, and about the year 1880 several such green
bagasse furnaces were installed. These did not come up to expectations,
however, and almost invariably they were abandoned and recourse had to
be taken to the old method of drying in the sun.

From 1880 the new era in the sugar industry may be dated. Slavery was
almost universally abolished and it became necessary to pay for labor.
The cost of production was thus increased, while growing competition of
European beet sugar lowered the prices. The only remedy for the new
state of affair