THE closing month of the year is one in which every agriculturist
should take an interest, and for many useful hints we will refer the
reader to the Northern Calendar for this month.
Cotton-picking will probably occupy this month until Christmas, when
this business will have been completed, if the culture has been well
managed, and the season favorable. It would be well to start your plows
and break up ground for corn; let nothing but cotton prevent--not
even cleaning; for plowing is only one job; yet, if done soon, it is
generally advantageous, and if bad weather should set in when it must
be done, time will be lost, and a drawback ensue, whereas by plowing in
time, cleaning can be done later.
In weather not employed about other labor more important, manure and
trim all kinds of vines and fruit-trees, except the orange tribe.
Transplant evergreens and other trees, sweet briers, honeysuckles,
jasmines, &c.; sow late peas and beans, and set out onions for seed;
set all hands at work in cleaning up for other crops, picking up
limbs, grubbing, cleaning up hollows, sides of bayous, cutting down
corn-stalks with hoes, gathering materials for making manure, &c., &c.
If you do not live in the immediate vicinity, say five or six miles,
from a sugar-plantation, by all means keep bees. This can be rendered
one of the most productive branches of business of the day. Procure
a few swarms at first, and they will soon multiply to any extent
required. Use sections of hollow logs, four or five feet long, for
hives, if you have no other more convenient materials to make them
of, and allow the bees to work over the honey a second time, that you
may avoid the injurious effects in eating honey which may have been
gathered from poisonous flowers. If the above-named class of hives be
used, there will be no necessity for killing the bees; for when the
hives are filled with honey, they can be removed without harm from
the end opposite to that in which the bees are at work, and they will
immediately go to work and fill the vacancy. In most parts of the
Southern States bees maybe kept at work during the winter. If there
are not flowers for them, they can be made to work over the bad honey
collected the season before.
This is also a busy month for the sugar-planter. He will be active
in cutting and carting his cane with all possible despatch; and he
should employ one or more practical and intelligent men to conduct the
operations of the mill. In the manufacture of sugar, we know of no
better method than that given by Professor Mapes in a letter to Hon. H.
L. Ellsworth, from which we make the following extract:--
1. To cut the cane as ripe as possible, but before any acetic acid is
formed; litmus paper, touched to the fresh-cut cane, will turn red if
acid.
2. Express the juice without loss of time, as every moment after
cutting will deteriorate its quality.
3. A small quantity of clear lime-water, say one quart to a hundred
gallons of juice, should be added the moment it is expressed, unless
the juice shows acidity with litmus paper; in that case, no lime should
be used, but a solution of sal-soda or soda ash should be added, until
it is precisely neutral.
4. When the juice is neutral, free from excess of acid or alkali, it
should be evaporated in such an apparatus as would finish its charge in
30 minutes; if the boiling power is too small, good crystallization can
not possibly be obtained.
The whole time occupied, from the cutting of the cane to finishing its
boiling, should not exceed one hour.
5. To know when the boiling is finished, place a thermometer in the
kettle, and continue to evaporate until it stands at 239° Fahrenheit.
If, when placed to run off after cooling, it should be found too freely
boiled, the next time boil to 240°, or, if too light to run off, to
238°, and so on.
6. The kettle or boiler should be so arranged, that the moment it is
done its charge should be thrown into a cooler, capable of holding a
number of charges. The first charge should be left in the cooler with
stirring, until the second charge is thrown in; then with an oar scrape
the crystals found on the side and bottom of the cooler loose, and
gently stir the whole mass together: the less stirred the better; so
continue at the letting in of each charge, to stir gently; and when all
is in the cooler, let the whole stand until it cools down to 175°; then
fill out into sugar-moulds of a capacity not less than 14 gallons. When
cooled in the mould sufficiently, say fourteen hours, pull the plug out
of the bottom of the mould, and insert a sharp point, nearly as large
as the hole, some six inches; withdraw the point, and stand the mould
on a pot to drip.
7. If the sugar is intended to be brown, leaving it standing on the pot
for a sufficient length of time, in a temperature of 80°, will run off
its molasses, and leave it in a merchantable shape; it will probably
require twenty days. It can then be thrown out of the moulds, and will
be fit for use. When moulds can not be obtained, conical vessels of
wood or metal, with a hole at the apex, will answer equally well.