sugar. It is probable that this
was originally done in hand mortars. Next came the passing of the cane
between wooden rollers turned by ox power, the rollers standing upright and
connected with a projecting shaft or beam to the outer end of which the
animal was attached, to plod around and around while the cane was fed
between the rollers. The present system is merely an expansion of that old
principle. At the mill, the stalks are dumped, by carload or by cartload,
into a channel through which they are mechanically conveyed to huge
rollers, placed horizontally, arranged in pairs or in sets of three, and
slowly turned by powerful engines. The larger mills have a series of these
rollers, two, three, or even four sets, the stalks passing from one to
another for the expression of every possible drop of the juice, up to the
point where the cost of juice extraction exceeds the value of the juice
obtained. The expressed juices are collected in troughs through which they
are run to the next operation. The crushed stalks, then known as _bagasse_,
are conveyed to the huge boilers where they are used as fuel for the
generation of the steam required in the various operations, from the
feeding and the turning of the rollers, to the device from which the final
product, the crystallized sugar, is poured into bags ready for shipment.
All this is a seasonal enterprise. The cane grows throughout the year, but
it begins to ripen in December. Then the mills start up and run until the
rains of the next May or June suspend further operations. It then becomes
impossible to haul the cane over the heavily mired roads from the muddy
fields. Usually, only a few mills begin their work in December, and early
June usually sees most of them shut down. The beginning of the rainy season
is not uniform, and there are mills in eastern Cuba that sometimes run into
July and even into August. But the general grinding season may be given as
of about five months duration, and busy months they are. The work goes on
night and day.

The next step is the treatment of the juices expressed by the rollers and
collected in the troughs that carry it onward. The operations are highly
technical, and different methods are employed in different mills. The first
operation is one of purification. The juice, as it comes from the rollers,
carries such materials as glucose, salts, organic acids, and other
impurities, that must be removed. For this, lime is the principal agent.