18 2 4 154 .897 29 10. 11 150....... .2,077 200,000 hogsheads. The number of steam 1846 sugar-mills that year was 408, the rest being horse. Whole number of planters then, 900. The estimate of 1845-6 includes the cistern bottoms. Mr. Champomier estimated there would be in operation in 1847, from returns 20 made to him, 1,240 sugar-houses, owned by 46 2,077 proprietors. They appear in our table 98 of 1846 as in progress; 204 expecting to work in '46 and '47, and 81 in '47 and '48. From the stimulant given to the sugar culture from the high prices of 1847, and the very low rates of cotton in 1843, the new bayou and river lands taken into cultivation, and especially the re1152 gion on the Red River, the whole number of 1,539 sugar-mills in Louisiana in 1849-50, will 1,015 scarcely fall short of 1,500. About one-half 1,016 of the mills are by horse-power, though steam is being rapidly substituted. 1,019 156 1,170 2,035 .2,324 Thus, nine planters produced as much as the 81 planters of St. Martin's, Lafayette, St. Landry, Vermillion and West Baton Rouge, and one-sixteenth of the whole crop. About 160 planters produced one-half of the whole crop. It is to be observed, however, that many planters have interests in other estates than their own, and others have estates in different parishes. Several have often an interest in the same estate. Adding the cistern bottom sugars, used by the refiners, the crop of 1844-5 exceeded If we consider the whole territory of Loui siana, and compare the country south of Rapides Parish, excluding the Florida parishes, we shall find about one-half of the state adapted to the sugar culture. Probably not one-twentieth is now cultivated in sugar. There are many parishes in which it is not cultivated at all. 120,000 out of 200,000 hogsheads, which the state produces, are made by the parishes on the river above and below the city. The crops of Red River parishes, the present year, we have not learned, but, from 30 houses, may estimate 7,000 hogsheads, perhaps 10,000. The above statistics are from the valuable annual report of Mr. Champomier upon the crop. Forty-three plantations in the state are worked on the various new processes and vacuum principle. Quality of the crop generally indifferent, the season being bad. ficiency of rains throughout the state. There are 1,474 sugar plantations in Louisiana, 914 being worked by steam, and 560 by horsepower. The molasses crop unusually large, averaging this year 70 gallons to the 1,000 lbs. sugar. The crevasses on the Mississippi, Lafourche, and Plaquemines, destroyed 9,000 or 10.000 hogsheads. .236,547 66 Louisiana Steam Refinery, 1.467,905 lbs. Louisiana sugar, 52,872 lbs. cistern sugar, 538 boxes Cuba sugar. Battle-ground Refinery, besides the crop of the plantation, (550,000 lbs.,) 3,214,767 lbs. sugar, 537,222 De- lbs. cisterns, 211 boxes Cuba. Lafayette Refinery, 81,765 lbs. sugar, 2,735,114 lbs. cisterns. Valcour Aime's Refinery, besides the crop of 678,000 lbs., 1,859,487 lbs. sugar, 1,004,098 lbs. cisterns, 800,986 lbs. Cuba. The Louisiana Refinery also worked up 2,809 gallons Louisiana molasses, and 249,629 gallons Cuba; the Battle-ground, 94,554 Louisiana, and 179,260 Cuba; the Lafayette, 7,047 gallons Cuba: and the Valcour Aime, 88,555 gallons Cuba molasses. The refineries of Louisiana worked up the following: SUGAR TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES. Imports, Exports, Stocks, and Estimated Consumption of Raw, Clayed, &c., for the year ending December 31, 1351, exclusive of California and Oregon. 66 Received from Texas. Other coastwise.... 3,758. Total supply.. 188,411..154,954...303.. 13..35,920 3,384...13,733. .147,397...1,706..44,738...191,897.. 168,687.. 303 Exp'd 712 hhds., ship'd to Ca'da 217....929... 81. 20.....3,091... 146,369...1,625..44,718...188,806..168,687.. 303 Add stock, January 1, 1851.... 1....... 1,601.. .8,835....3,798. 147,970...1,625 .44,718...197,641..172,485 303 Taken for cons'ption f'm this port.. 140,388...1,625..44,718...184,129..146,380 * Muscovado. Or, about 132,832 tons-of which, foreign, imported direct, 120,599. Same time last year, 104,071 tons-of which foreign, imported direct, 65,089 tons. Received at New-York, from foreign and coastwise ports, from 1st January to 31st December. Stock in New-York, At New-York Boston. New-Orleans. Other ports Most of the barrels received here from coastwise ports is refined sugar. Add crop of 1850-251, Louisiana, Texas, &c., the bulk of which came to market in 1851, and assuming the stock 1st January each year to be equal.. 120,331 Would make the total consumption in the United States, from January 1, 1851, to December 31, 1851..... 321,736 Vermont. Pennsylvania. North Carolina. Georgia. Mississippi. The above statement we believe to be a New-Hampshire. correct exhibit of the quantity of raw, clayed, &c., sugar, taken from the ports, for con- Connecticut sumption in the country. It will be ob- New-York.. served, we do not include the receipts of New-Jersey. European refined sugar, being unable to obtain any reliable data for them, and we do not embrace in our exports any foreign or domestic refined sugar, having confined ourselves wholly to the descriptions noticed. The quantity of sugar made here from molas-Texas. ses is large, and the production of the maple tree the last season is rated at 17,500 tons. Ohio For the following interesting statistics re- Michigan.. lative to the production of sugar in this Indiana.. country from the cane and from the maple tree, taken from the United States Marshal's Louisiana. returns of the seventh census, for the year Kentucky Wisconsin. ending June 1, 1850, we are indebted to Minnesota Ter'ry. Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Esq., Superintendent of Census, Washington, D. C. Arkansas Illinois Iowa. Total SUGAR-IMPORTATIONS OF, 87,541 171,943 47,740 28 473 INTO THE UNITED STATES SINCE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT, INCLUSIVE OF THE FISCAL the most juice would be apparent in the reduced quantity of gum and extractive matter from the rind, which must always exude when under great pressure. And still farther, another advantage from expressing the largest quantity of juice would be that the bagasse is the more readily converted to a state fit for fuel, which becomes proportionably desirable as other fuel is scarce. SUGAR MANUFACTURE, ETC., IN | least possible mechanical force to produce LOUISIANA. In Louisiana the sugar-cane is passed through the mill but once, and the amount of juice obtained is rarely more than 60 per cent. of the weight of the cane. Therefore the bagasse does not come out perfectly dry, and often contains half as much juice as has already been expressed, especially in horse mills, where the power is moderate and the rollers "set large." The greatest difficulty to overcome in a subsequent operation for the extraction of the remaining juice, is the absorbing power of the spongy texture of the pith, which enables it with exceeding facility to retake the juice expressed; and it has been proposed to charge it with steam at this point in order to supply the place of the more valuable sap; or by a second pressure then imposed, to wash out all the remaining saccharine of the cane. But this method, involving the increased expense of extended evaporation, greatly disproportionate to the result obtained, after repeated experiments performed on both large and small scales, has been abandoned, and attention more directly given to the operation of the first pressing in order to enhance its value and result. In taking note, therefore, from the experience of others, we observe that those steam-mills of greatest power, moving at the least speed, yield the largest quantity of juice and the driest bagasse. The cane held for a greater length of time between the rollers, allows the larger quantity of juice to fall to a distance beyond the danger of reabsorption, and therefore increases the amount yielded by the single compression. If, therefore, we would increase the amount of work from the mill, it would be improper to double the supply of cane, or the motive power, or even the rapidity of the revolution, but to avoid the too-heavy feeding, extend the length of the rollers, and continue the equal and well-spread supply along the canecarrier, if possible even reducing the speed. The average length of rollers might be therefore advantageously increased from four to five; or, perhaps, in extraordinary cases, to five and a half feet, and involving but slight difference of construction with such an improvement. With regard to their diameter, we are of opinion it should be diminished with the increased length rather than enlarged on the principle that substances intervening in the contact of large cylinders, offer resistance in proportion to the surface they cover; and in a mill of three rollers, if the third were of reduced diameter, the nipping surface would be proportionably increased in power, and the result of the final compression greater. With such construction and adaptation, a fourth roller, to produce the third action on the cane, might be found superfluous, and the advantage of using the The value of all combustibles is a subject of increasing importance to every planter, as the supply of wood is diminished by his increased cultivation; and it may be worth a thought, if cutting canes too long and pressing them too closely may not be inexpedient, owing to the increased expense of fuel necessarily incurred to effect the evaporation of such juice thereby produced, surcharged with gum, and boiling with greater difficulty. Without any reliable means, therefore, of estimating the true value of juice-that is to say, its positive quantity of saccharine, it will be impossible to give rules to be depended upon as to quantities of fuel under any methods of application, which shall produce certain results of evaporation, or residue of sugar, to say nothing of the variable quality of plantation wood. We hear it frequently observed that it takes two or two and a half cords per hogshead; but that this is dry wood, drift, or refuse, gleaned from the clearings, is very rarely taken into account. It is, therefore, exceedingly difficult, where coal is not the only fuel used, to obtain any reliable data for calculation of amount of caloric or steam, furnished by any given quantity of boiler, for purposes either of evaporation or steam production. Besides, this is not to be forgotten in the very many different methods of adapting combustion both to trains of kettles and to boilers. On some estates we find a train consuming three cords of bad wood per hogshead of sugar, and another half that amount of good wood is made to produce an equal result. The wet fuel, to support its own combustion, requires a large proportion of the heat it generates to set free the water it contains, and to prepare the repeated supplies to the fire for active combustion. The bad economy of using such wood is at once apparent, beyond the poor fire it produces, even to the extra cost of all the lost labor incurred in bringing such a collection to the sugar-house; labor which would have been of positive value in the field, and brought an increase of crop. As a branch of the subject, we would notice some of the many ways of setting the "trains" and boilers, of which there seems to be such endless variety, and none universally popular. In the East Indies we have seen a pit eight feet square dug in the ground to the depth of five feet, from this is extended a canal two feet wide and three feet deep, to |