The sugar-cane flourishes exceedingly in the hotter territories towards
the north, if properly cultivated. In the month of August, at the end of
winter that is, slips of canes, about one or two feet long, are placed
sloping in furrows, at equal distances, and properly ploughed. These
gradually rot under ground, and from them a new germ arises, which grows
to the height of eight feet, and is cut down in the space of about two
months, being perfectly ripe. The longer they are left in the field, the
sweeter and thicker becomes their juice, which is afterwards expressed
by various methods and machines in America. In Paraguay, the canes,
after being stripped of their leaves, are cut into pieces a foot and a
half in length. These are thrust by the hand into two large cylinders of
very hard wood, which are turned round by two oxen with the help of a
great wooden wheel. The juice squeezed out by the tight compression of
the cylinders, falls into a boat or cup placed beneath. It is then
boiled in a brass pan, more or less, according to the various uses for
which the sweet liquor is intended; for if it be used in the same manner
as honey, which serves either for food or drink, it is less thickened on
the fire, and kept in skins, at the bottom of which, after the liquid
part is consumed, you find white crystallized stones, made of the
coagulated sugar, which is commonly called the pure and natural
sugar-candy; for that yellow candied sugar so full of threads, which is
sold in shops, appears to be artificial. But if the liquor expressed
from the canes be intended for making sugar, it must be boiled for a
long time, and brought to a thick mass. The oftener this is strained
through an earthen pan perforated at the bottom, and the longer it is
exposed to the sun, the more thoroughly it is purged of the dregs, which
flow off into a vessel placed beneath the pan, and the whiter and better
sugar it becomes. Of these dregs the Spaniards make either coarser
sugar, or aqua vitæ, by liquefying it at the fire drop by drop. For the
same purpose others use the canes that have been pressed by the
cylinders, but have not had all their juice entirely squeezed out.
Observe, moreover, that the pans in which that sweet liquor is daily
exposed to the sun are carefully covered with fresh moist mud. All the
sugar prepared in Paraguay, and the neighbouring Brazil, has the
appearance of wheat flour. That alone is used by the Portugueze; it is
transported from Lisbon, in ships, to different places, and made as hard
as a stone by aid of chalk, or bull's blood. As the industry of the
inhabitants in Paraguay by no means answers to the fertility of the
soil, the sugar made there is rarely sufficient for that province, so
that no one thinks of exporting any from thence. On the contrary, from
the exquisite cultivation of the sugar cane, Brazil derives immense
wealth from Europe; it is the chief strength of the Portugueze trade,
and a perpetual source of riches. The sugar cane differs from the common
reed no otherwise than in having more joints, and a smaller space
between each. It is adorned with beautifully green and very large
leaves, especially at the top. It is about four inches thick. Though the
plant is seven or eight feet high, great part of it towards the top is
thrown away, being devoid of juice, and very full of leaves. Sugar canes
like a rich and moist soil, nor will they grow much on hills, though
well watered. More earth must be heaped on the sugar cane after it has
been lately planted in the summer, less in the winter, that it may not
bud too much; for the more leaves it bears the less juice it will yield.
Weeds, which suck up the moisture of the earth, must be carefully
extirpated. Moderate frosts are useful to the full grown canes, because
they thicken the sweet liquor; immoderate ones do harm, because they
exhaust it all. Ants, which are destructive to the young canes, must be
carefully kept away. Many other arts, proper to be used in the rearing
and expression of canes, and the converting of them into sugar, I choose
to omit for the sake of brevity. I have briefly described the principal
ones, that Europeans may be made thoroughly acquainted with the origin
of sugar, which they know so well how to consume, and cease to wonder
that these reedy sweets, so laboriously prepared in America, should
often be sold at such an extravagant price in Europe.