From the American Agriculturist Almanac.
From the American Agriculturist Almanac.
Theclosing 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 addedthe 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.
D.