In some parts of the province of Guayaquil and on the coast of Choco the natives, who cultivate the cane for their household consumption of molasses, guarapo, and rum, cut all that is ripe, leaving that which is green; they next bare the roots, mix the soil so obtained with the soil in the furrow, by digging and turning them over, and then hill up the cane again. By repeating this operation every time they cut their cane, they have a constant succession of crops, and the plantation never fails; while in Peru a plantation only yields two crops, for the third is often scarcely sufficient to plant the ground for the ensuing harvest.
The general method of pressing the cane is by means of three vertical grooved brass cylinders, which are put in motion by two pairs of oxen, yoked to two opposite points of a large wooden wheel, placed above the cylinders, and attached at its centre to the axle of the central cylinder, the cogs or teeth of which communicate the rotatory motion to the other two. This tardy method of pressing is used on many plantations; but on the one I am now speaking of vertical water-wheels supply the place of the bullocks, one wheel being attached to each mill. There is however great room for improvement, particularly in the adoption of iron cog and lantern wheels, or at least of metal cogs to the large wheels, iron axletrees, &c.; but rude as the present plan is, the expence of keeping a considerable number of oxen is avoided.
The juice of the cane is received in the boiling house, in a large bell-metal pan, a small quantity of lime being first thrown into it; from this receiver it is carried in large calabashes to a pan ten feet deep, where it is evaporated to a proper consistency, and at intervals caustic ley is added to it, prepared at a considerable expence from the ashes of the _espino_, or _huarango_. After throwing into the pan about half a pint of this ley, a considerable quantity of fecula rises to the top, which is immediately taken off with a skimmer made of a large calabash, bored full of holes. When the syrup has become cool it is put into another pan, and evaporated to a proper consistency for crystallization; it is then poured into the moulds, made of common baked clay, in which it is repeatedly stirred, and on the following day it is transferred to the purging house, where the plug is taken from the bottom of the mould, and the coarse molasses run from the sugar. It is next removed to the claying house; each mould, like an inverted cone, is placed on a jar, and soft clay of the consistency of batter poured on the sugar. This operation is repeated three or four times, or till the loaf is purged from the molasses it contained, when it is taken out of the mould and carried into the store to dry. The whole process requires a month or five weeks, according to the season, for it is much sooner ready for the store house in damp weather than in dry. Unlike other countries, where the cane is only cut during a certain season, on the plantations on the coast of Peru it is cut and sugar is made from it during the whole year.