Everything is put in readiness before dark; and while others are still in bed, the farmer mounts his wagon to start toward the sleeping city. I have often ridden ten or fifteen miles on such a load before the stars faded away.
It is a novel experience. At first the night seems strangely still, but soon you are able to distinguish many voices coming from various places. The frogs croak from the ponds by the roadside; crickets and locusts send their shrill notes from grass and tree; a night owl startles you by his dismal hoot; the lamps of the fireflies gleam, then disappear only to shine out again a little farther on.
At last a faint glow appears in the eastern sky, which grows brighter and brighter until the shining face of the sun is pushed above the horizon. Do you not think such a ride would be more enjoyable than a street car ride?
In the cities there are market places where produce from the country is taken. In Chicago there is a very busy street where much of the buying and selling is done. Study the picture carefully. Here the buyers from hotels, restaurants, and stores, as well as the men who wish to peddle the produce from house to house, go for their daily supplies. There are also commission merchants whose stores are on this street. They sell the produce for those who ship it to the city by train.
We go to the stores and get what we want each day, or the peddlers bring it to the door. You see how necessary it is to have special workers to supply us with the different kinds of food. We consider it very important that we should have vegetables and fruits fresh daily. The work of supplying us with this food is very important. Remember that those who till the soil are entitled to as great respect as are those who do not work with their hands. Contact with nature makes men and women better, and many of the noblest souls that the world has known have lived in the country and plowed, planted, and harvested the products of the soil.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
Uncle Ben lives on a dairy farm in the western part of New York State. It is a beautiful rolling country with cultivated fields, woodland, and pastures, and here and there a sparkling stream winding its way through the lowlands. The farmhouses are large and well built, and are surrounded by grand old maple, beech, and elm trees. Most of the barns are painted red with white trimmings.
There are many dairy farms in the neighborhood. Some of the farmers send their milk to the towns to be used directly, some sell it to creameries, and some to cheese factories.
Last summer I spent my vacation on Uncle Ben's farm, and Cousin Frank and I had happy times, you may be sure.
Every day, just before sundown, we went to the pasture for the cows. There were about twenty-five of them, and they always seemed perfectly contented after the long day of feasting on rich grass and clover.
After we drove them into the barnyard Uncle Ben helped us fasten them in their stanchions in the barn. Then the men brought the bright pails and cans to begin milking. Cousin Frank and I always helped, although he can milk much faster than I. Some of the cows gave but two or three quarts, while others gave as many gallons.
We strained the milk into cans holding eight gallons each, and put them into tanks of water to cool. After milking was finished we turned the cattle into the barnyard for the night.
In the morning we commenced milking about sunrise. After breakfast the cans were loaded into a spring wagon and Uncle Ben drove to the depot. Here they were put on the "milk train," which took them to the city.
Many other people sent milk on this same train. It was sent to bakeries, to hotels and restaurants, and to milkmen, who delivered it from house to house. Usually the milkmen put the milk into pint or quart bottles for people who like to have it in that form. Uncle Ben told us that much of the milk that is sent to New York City is bottled before it is sent. The bottling is done by machinery. He also told us that, because of the great importance of having pure milk, there are, in all cities, inspectors who carefully examine the milk and report to the Board of Health. The cows also are inspected, and if any are sick, they are usually killed.
Each evening some one drove to the depot again to get empty cans which the milk train had brought home. These were always carefully washed in hot water before being used again.
BUTTER MAKING
One day, after I had been on the farm about a week, Uncle Ben took Frank and me to the creamery. A creamery is a place where the milk and cream are separated and butter is made.
We found several wagonloads of milk being unloaded. The milk was weighed as it was received, for it is sold by weight.
The milk was then strained into a large galvanized iron tub, from which a pipe carried it into a circular machine called the separator. The separator revolves rapidly, throwing the milk, which is heavier than the cream, to the outer edge, where it passes through small holes into a compartment by itself. The cream rises along the center and passes through another set of openings into a special compartment. A pipe carries it to a large vat, while another pipe conveys the milk to large tanks.
Uncle Ben told me that when people make their own butter, they must wait for the cream to rise on the milk. The cream is then skimmed off, and the milk is called skimmed milk. Although the milk in the creamery is not skimmed, the same name is used for it.
I asked if the skimmed milk was used for anything. Uncle Ben gave me a cupful of it to taste. It was very good. He then told me that the separator takes out only the part needed in making butter, leaving all of the sugar. I did not know before that milk contains sugar.
The farmers take home loads of this milk to feed it to their hogs. For each hundred pounds of milk delivered, they get back seventy-five pounds of skimmed milk, besides the pay for their cream.
The creamery man told me that he made from four to six pounds of butter from one hundred pounds of milk.
The cream remains in the large vat about twenty-four hours before it is churned. The churn, as you see by the picture, is a great barrel made to revolve by machinery. It takes from thirty-five minutes to one hour to churn. The man told me that I might look at the book in which he kept the record of the churning. I saw that he made from two hundred fifty to six hundred pounds of butter at a churning. He said that some churns would produce more than one thousand pounds at a churning.
Not all of the cream is made into butter. There is left in the bottom of the churn a liquid called buttermilk. This is drawn off, and the butter is washed and worked before being taken out of the churn. The working is done by means of paddles in the churn. It continues for six or eight minutes and squeezes the liquid out of the butter.
While the butter is being worked, it is salted. Some of the butter is unsalted, but most of it is salted. When butter is made in the home, it must be churned by hand. Only a few pounds at a time can be made in this way.
When the butter was taken out of the churn, the men packed it solidly in wooden boxes about two feet square and four inches deep. The bottom of each box consisted of strips as wide as a square of butter. These were held together by a clamp, and the sides were hooked to the bottom and to one another. When the butter is to be cut into squares, these sides are removed and zinc ones take their places. In these there are slits running from top to bottom. Through these slits a wire saw is run, and so the butter is quickly cut into one or two pound squares. The butter is then wrapped in fancy papers upon which the name of the butter or of the creamery is stamped.
Of course some of the butter is packed in wooden tubs and shipped in that form. This butter is a little cheaper than that put up in squares.
CHEESE
I was so much pleased with my visit to the creamery, that Uncle Ben promised to show me how cheese is made. So one morning just after breakfast he, Cousin Frank, and I started out. After a pleasant ride of about five miles we reached the factory.
The first process here was the same as that at the creamery. After the milk was weighed it was run into great zinc-lined vats. There were four of these in the factory, each of which held about five thousand pounds.
Uncle Ben explained that the milk must curdle before cheese can be made. In order to make it curdle quickly, a little less than a pound of a substance called rennet was put into each vat.
A man worked at each vat with a long wooden rake, stirring the milk constantly. I saw a glass tube standing in the milk and asked what it was. Uncle Ben told me to look at it closely. I saw that it was a thermometer, and that it registered eighty degrees. A little while after I looked again, when it showed a temperature of ninety degrees. The milk is kept warm, so as to help it to curdle quickly.
In about an hour I could see the curd very plainly, but the men kept on stirring and cutting it. Presently one of them carried a piece of the curd to a table. He heated a small iron rod and touched it with the curd. When he pulled the curd away, little threads were drawn out to the length of half an inch or more. This he called the "acid test," which showed that the curd was in the right condition to be made into cheese.
Of course only a part of the milk had turned into curd; the rest was whey, that was drawn off and run into tanks. Each man who had delivered one hundred pounds of milk was given a check for seventy-five pounds of the whey. It is fed to hogs. About two hours from the time that the milk was put into the vats, the whey was drawn off.
One of the men now took a long knife and cut the curd into oblong cakes. These he frequently lifted and turned over. After continuing this for about twenty minutes, the pieces of curd were put into a small mill, placed on a board over the vat, and the curd was chopped into strips from one to six inches long and from one-half an inch to an inch thick. Salt was scattered over the mass by one man, while another pitched it about with a three-pronged wooden fork. The man told me that he used three pounds of salt to each thousand pounds of milk.
Next, a piece of cloth was placed on a board about sixteen inches square. Two circular metal frames or bands, about six inches high, were fitted one within the other and placed on the cloth. The frame was filled with curd, covered by a cloth, and another set placed on top of it until there were five. They were then put on a table directly under a block which was fastened to a screw. By turning the screw the block was pressed against the top board, and so each frame of curd was pressed. I saw the whey running out as the squeezing went on. The superintendent told us that the curd would be left in the press until the next day.
We were then taken into the room where the cheese "ripens." Here we saw large racks reaching nearly to the ceiling, filled with double rows of cheeses. The smallest ones weighed but three pounds, while the largest weighed fifty pounds. It may take but a few days and it may take many months to "ripen" a cheese. It depends upon the flavor wanted. The man said that in England "strong" cheese is generally liked, while in our country "mild" cheese is preferred.
I asked how much cheese five thousand pounds of milk would make, and was told that it would make between four and five hundred pounds.
On the way home Uncle Ben told us that although our country is a great dairy country, we import certain kinds of cheese from Europe. He told us how the Swiss people pasture their cattle on the steep mountain sides, and that in every little mountain valley cheese is made, some of which finds its way over the mountains and across the sea to the United States.
THE FISHING INDUSTRY
Have you ever stood by the side of a stream and watched the fish dart from one shadow of overhanging rock into another, or swim lazily at the bottom of some deep pool? How gracefully they move and turn! How like water jewels they flash as the sunlight falls upon them!
Most streams and lakes, like the ocean, contain fish. So we have fresh-water and salt-water fish. There are a few bodies of water so full of salt that fish cannot live in them. Do you know of any such bodies of water?
Most of the fish used as food come from the ocean. In this, and in most other countries, there are many men who do nothing but fish, in order that other people may be supplied with this sort of food. They do not depend upon hook and line alone, but use nets also.
Nets are great sacks made of cord, knotted or woven together in such a way as to leave spaces or meshes. These meshes are not big enough to allow large fish to escape. Sometimes the fishermen go out in rowboats some distance from shore and then throw the net into the water. Corks or floats keep the upper edge of the net near the surface, while weights hold the lower edge on the bottom. Ropes are fastened to each end, and so it is drawn toward the shore. How the fishermen wish that they could see to the bottom of the restless water and know what their harvest is to be! When the boats have almost reached the shore, horses are sometimes driven into the water and hitched to the ropes. At last the net is dragged out upon the sands and the uncertainty is past.
Look! Within the folds of the net is a countless number of fishes, each jumping, squirming, wriggling, trying to get back to its ocean home. They are of many sizes, shapes, and colors. Those not good for food, together with the smallest ones, are thrown back into the water.
Sometimes a net called a "dip-net" is dropped from a fishing schooner and drawn about a "school" of fish. I have seen many barrels of fish brought up at one time in this way.
The fishermen keep a close watch for the appearance of these "schools," you may be sure. Whales and dolphins pursue them, and gulls and cormorants circle overhead, for they, too, are fishers. Their appearance helps the men to tell where the "schools" are. There is a great rush for the fishing grounds when they are sighted. The white-sailed schooners skim over the waters almost like a flock of birds.
Large quantities of fish are caught by a method called trawl fishing. This may be carried on miles from the shore. How do you suppose it is done? To a very long and strong line, many shorter ones, each with a hook at the end, are attached. These lines, to which large buoys are fastened, are left in the water for several hours, and then fishermen in flat-bottomed boats called dories row out from the schooner and examine them. The lines are then reset and the fish taken to the schooner to be dressed. This is a common method of catching codfish, which is carried on during summer and winter alike. Storms and fogs are likely to occur while the men are out in their little boats, making their work full of danger as well as of hardship.
Many of the fish are packed in ice and sold fresh, while others are cured on the boats or on shore. Some of the fishing schooners carry great quantities of salt when they start out on a trip. The fish are dressed and packed in this. Sometimes they are packed in brine, and along the shores of some countries they are strung on poles to dry.
Codfish are dried in great quantities along the New England coast by placing them on frames made of strips of wood and raised a little above the wharf, so that the air can circulate freely. When the skin and bones are removed and the flesh cut into strips, it is called "shredded" codfish.
The principal food-fish are the cod, mackerel, herring, halibut, shad, salmon, sardines, and whitefish. Whitefish are caught in the Great Lakes. To this list the lobster may be added, although it is not a fish.
A common method of catching lobsters is to sink a box made of lath to the bottom, where they crawl about on the rocks. A fish head is placed in the box for bait. The lobsters crawl in and are likely to remain until the box is examined.
Lobster steamers, fitted up with tanks containing salt water, run from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to Boston and New York. Here those not wanted are placed on cars containing similar tanks and sent to interior cities. In this way fresh lobsters are served thousands of miles from where they were caught.
A lobster that would cost us from twenty-five to seventy-five cents brings the fisherman not more than ten cents.
Along our New England coast there are many towns engaged extensively in fishing. Portland, Gloucester, Boston, and Provincetown are among the number. Gloucester is the most important fishing town in the United States. From it fishing schooners go as far as Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and even to the coast of Ireland. There are also important fisheries on the Pacific coast, from San Francisco to Alaska. Here the salmon are taken in great numbers. They weigh from twenty to one hundred pounds. The fish are canned and shipped to all parts of the country. Besides being caught in nets and traps and on lines many are caught in "fish wheels." These are fastened to the stern of a boat and revolve in the water. The fish are caught in pockets and dropped in the boat as the wheel brings them up over it.
There are very extensive fisheries along the shores of the British Isles and on the western coast of Europe. Fishing is the chief industry in the towns along the coast of Norway. The air is full of the odor of fish, while drying fish, nets, and boats are everywhere in sight.
Although the supply of fish in the ocean is very great, it is diminishing, especially near the shore. Most countries now pay considerable attention to the raising of both fresh and salt water fishes, and they have passed laws regulating fishing. Eggs are hatched in great hatcheries, from which the young fish are taken where they are most needed.
The great ocean is free to all to sail over or fish in at will. There is a narrow strip along the shore three miles wide, which belongs to the country which it borders. The men of other countries are not allowed to fish there.
The fisherman is a brave and sturdy man. His life is full of danger. He battles constantly with the winds and the waves. Fogs may hide the sharp rocks which seem to wait for a chance to destroy his little vessel. Sometimes icebergs or great ocean steamers sink his boat and he is never seen again.
When storms are raging and night has settled over sea and land, and angry waves are dashing themselves into foam against the shore, the mothers, wives, and children look anxiously from their cottage windows toward the sea, and pray that their loved ones may return to them in safety.
OYSTER FARMING
It sounds strange to speak of farming in the ocean, but there are many and large oyster farms all along our coast. Some of these farms are covered by water all of the time and some are uncovered when the tide is low. Oyster farms are far more profitable than are those upon which corn and wheat are raised.
This is a new industry in our country because civilized people have not lived here very long, but it is a very old one in some parts of the world. As long ago as the seventh century a Roman knight raised oysters for the market, and it is said that the business made him very wealthy.
You will understand better about the cultivation of oysters, if I tell you first how they live and grow in their natural homes.
Except during the first few days of their lives, oysters are prisoners. They cannot move about freely from place to place as fishes and most animals can, but they are attached to rocks, to the shells of their dead relatives, and to other objects. How, then, do you suppose they get their food? They grow in immense numbers, and they crowd one another more than people do in the tenement houses in our great cities. In fact most of them are soon crowded out, and they die, leaving room for the rest to grow upon their empty homes. In this way the oyster beds spread out.
These oyster beds are not found in very deep water, but rather along the shore, generally near the mouth of some river. As I have told you, they often live where they are uncovered when the tide goes out. You can see from this that it is not very difficult to gather oysters, so that, partly on this account, man has used them for food for ages.
When the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the shores of New England, they found that the Indians used oysters very commonly. All along the coast were great heaps of the shells. At the very first Thanksgiving dinner given in America, oysters were served.
Oysters used to be so plentiful on these natural beds that they were very cheap. In some places where the winter weather was cold enough to freeze the water along the shore, people cut holes in the ice and gathered them by means of long-handled rakes.
In a single year an oyster will produce more than a million young ones. Just think of it! If all of this family grew up, they would fill a room fourteen feet in each dimension.
These young oysters are very small. They are called "spat." Most of them are drifted away by waves and currents, or devoured by larger sea animals. The few that escape soon attach themselves to some object, so getting a chance to begin the battle of life.
If oysters are caught at all times of the year it does not give them a chance to produce their young, and this, as well as catching the young ones themselves, has destroyed many of the natural beds. In order to keep up the supply of this food men commenced oyster farming. You see how our daily needs and desires lead to the establishment of great industries.
The oyster farmer prepares his farm in various ways. He places clean oyster shells, stones, trays, bundles of sticks, and other things on the bottom, so that the oysters may find something to which to attach themselves. Then he places the young oysters or "spat" on these objects. When trays are used, several are placed one upon another and bound together by means of a chain. These trays are taken up from time to time in order to gather the oysters that are ready for market.
Stones are sometimes piled on the bottom and the "spat" are placed in the crevices between them. Often stakes are planted in a somewhat circular form. Cords are attached to the stakes, to which bundles of sticks are fastened in such a way as to keep them a little above the bottom. Young oysters attach themselves to these sticks, which may be drawn up when the proper time comes.
Shells are used more commonly than other things. They are taken from the restaurants and hotels to the farms in boat loads, to be scattered over the bottom.
The young oysters grow at very different rates. In two years they may grow to be six inches in length, or it may take several years to reach that size. They grow more rapidly on the artificial beds, and are better in quality also. The starfish is one of the greatest enemies of the oyster, large numbers of which it destroys every year.
During the fishing season the oyster men go to the beds in their boats and scoop the oysters up from the bottom. This is called dredging. The scoops with their loads of oysters are drawn to the deck of the boat by machinery. Sometimes the oysters are gathered by means of long tongs.
As the oysters are usually in clusters, these have to be broken up. For this purpose a sort of a hammer known as a culling iron is used. The oysters are broken apart and sorted. Sometimes the oyster man makes three grades and sometimes four.
Oysters are not the only things drawn up in the dredge. Starfish, lobsters, and various kinds of fishes are gathered in. The starfish are killed and the rest thrown back.
The oysters are heaped up in great piles on the deck of the boat. Sacks and barrels are filled with them, and many car loads are shipped daily from the cities near the fishing grounds. Chesapeake Bay is the center of the oyster industry in our country. Find it. There are oyster beds, however, all along both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts.
Great quantities of oysters are canned near where they are caught. Getting them out of their shells is not an easy matter. For this purpose a knife is used. This work is called in the South "shucking oysters." Canning oysters is an important industry in the city of Baltimore. Have you ever seen cans of oysters that came from there?
A RICE FIELD
When you do not feel quite satisfied with your breakfast, dinner, or supper, and think that there should be a greater variety of food on the table, just come with me and we will visit some of the boys and girls of far-away China. What do you suppose their chief article of food is? Rice. Rice in the morning, rice at noon, and rice at night. Rice from the beginning to the end of the year. In the poorer families a bit of dried fish and some vegetables are usually eaten with it. Those who can afford such things have bits of preserved ginger, mushrooms, and barley cakes with the rice. Of course the rich people have other things to eat, but most of the people of China are poor.
In the fertile portions of China the people live very close together. Gardens take the place of farms. Workmen often receive no more than ten cents a day. On this account they cannot afford the variety of food that we have, but must be content with whatever is cheap and nourishing for their labor. If the rice crop were to fail, the Chinese would suffer. You will see how important this food is to them, when I tell you that they are forbidden by law to sell rice to other countries.
Perhaps you are wondering where the rice that we use in this country comes from. Rice is grown in great quantities in Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Ceylon, India, the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, and in our Gulf states.
Rice is the chief food of one half the people of the world. Although we raise large quantities, we produce only about one half of what we use. It is a kind of grain which will not thrive on the fertile Western prairies where corn, oats, and wheat grow. It needs a warm climate and a great deal of water. For this reason the rice fields are found on the marshy lands near the coast, and by the banks of rivers, where they can be easily flooded. Some rice is raised on the uplands, but not so successfully as on the lowlands.
Canals are dug from the streams through the farms, and from these smaller ditches branch off so as to reach all parts. They are so arranged that the farmer can turn the water on or off whenever he wishes. On some of the farms, wells furnish the water to the canals.
In the Gulf states the fields are plowed in the winter, and the rice is sown between the first of April and the middle of May. Sometimes the seed is sown broadcast, as wheat is, and sometimes it is planted in regular drills or trenches about twelve inches apart.
The Japanese sow the seed in gardens, and when the plants are eight or ten inches high, they are pulled up and transplanted to the fields. The men work right in the water, for the fields are flooded at the time.
In our country the farmer floods the field as soon as the seeds are planted, allowing the water to remain five or six days. When the young blade of rice is a few inches high, the field is again flooded. After the second leaf appears on the stalk, the water is turned on and left for twenty or thirty days. After the land dries the crop is hoed. The fields are irrigated from time to time, until about eight days before the harvest, which generally occurs in August.
When full grown, the stalks are from one to six feet in height, with long, slender leaves. The kernels grow much as those of wheat and oats do.
On account of the fields being so wet, rice, in most countries, is cut by hand. In China and Japan small curved sickles are used, and the grain is bound up in very small bundles. In Louisiana and some other parts of the South, regular harvesters are used. They have very broad wheels. Why?
After the grain has been bound into bundles, these are set up in double rows to dry. This is called shocking the rice. The grain is then put through a thrashing machine, to separate it from the straw.
Rice kernels are covered by a husk. Before the husk is removed the grain is often called paddy rice. Removing the hulls or husks is called hulling. The hulling machine is a long tube into one end of which the rice is poured. Within the tube are ribs which revolve rapidly. As the kernels pass between these the hulls are taken off.
If you were passing through a Chinese village, you might hear sounds like those produced when a man pounds with a mallet on a great piece of timber. On searching for the sounds, you would find that they came from the rice mill. The mill consists of a portion of a log hollowed out and placed upright. In the hollow a quantity of rice is held. A piece of timber, fastened to a pivot, extends in a horizontal position with one end over the mill. To this end another timber is fastened in an upright position. A Chinaman gets on to the end of the long timber which is farthest from the mill. This raises the end with the upright. He then jumps off and the upright falls, striking upon the rice. In this way the hulls are worn off.
After hulling, the grain is carefully screened, in order to remove the hulls, the broken and very small kernels, and the rice flour. This latter makes good cattle food.
Perhaps you have noticed that rice kernels have a bluish appearance. This is not natural, but is the result of polishing. The polishing removes much of the best part of the grain, but the rice sells for a higher price simply on account of its appearance.
The polishing machine is cylindrical or drum-like in shape. Moosehide or sheepskin is tacked to the cylinder. It is made to revolve rapidly, so that the kernels are polished as they pass over the skin. After being polished the kernels are run through screens and sorted. The rice is then put up in barrels or sacks and shipped.
HOW SUGAR IS MADE
This picture represents one of the beginnings of the great industry of sugar making. The small objects which you see in the trenches are pieces of sugar cane. These "cuttings," as they are called, are covered with soil. They soon sprout, and from them grow the tall, waving fields of cane, which resemble cornfields. The canes are taller than cornstalks, however. How high do you think those shown in the picture are?
In about ten months after planting the cane is ready to cut. In the Southern states this work usually begins about the middle of October.
The canes are jointed, as cornstalks are, and the spongy substance between the joints is filled with a sweet juice. It is from this juice or sap that cane sugar is made. I have seen children chew pieces of the cane, and enjoy it as you do candy; for this use it is sometimes sold in stores in the South.
After the canes are cut they are hauled to the mill or sugarhouse on wagons. On the large plantations tram cars sometimes run right into the fields.
At the mill the canes are run between heavy rollers, which squeeze out the sap. Sometimes as many as seventy-five pounds of sap are obtained from one hundred pounds of cane. The crushed stalks are used in the mill for fuel, and the ashes are returned to the land to fertilize it.
When the juice is first pressed out, it is not at all clear in color. It is then placed in great vats or kettles and heated. This heating causes the water which is in the sap to evaporate, and it also brings some of the impurities to the top, where they are skimmed off. When the evaporating has been finished, there are two products, molasses and brown sugar.
The sugar must next be refined. For this purpose it is usually sent to cities outside of the sugar belt. There are great refineries in New Orleans, San Francisco, St. Louis, Chicago, and other cities.
When the raw sugar, as it is called, reaches the refinery, which is generally a tall building, it is taken to the top story and dissolved in hot water. It then passes through bags which act as filters, and through a great cylinder which contains burned bones, known as bone-black. You remember that I told you that the bones of the cattle were saved. This is one of the uses to which they are put. When the liquid comes out of this bone filter it is a perfectly clear sirup, which is then crystallized.
You know that we buy refined sugar in three forms: granulated sugar, loaf sugar, and pulverized sugar. When granulated sugar is wanted, the crystals are placed in a great drum, which revolves until they are thoroughly dried in the right form. To make loaf sugar, the crystals are pressed into molds, then dried, and cut into the size desired. In powdered sugar they are simply ground to a powdered condition.
Think how much labor is required to produce sugar, and yet you can buy it for five cents a pound.
There are great fields of sugar cane in the Gulf states, in Cuba, in the Hawaiian Islands, in the East Indies, in India, and in other warm, moist parts of the world. We buy a great deal of sugar from Cuba, and from the Hawaiian Islands. To what city do you think the sugar from the Hawaiian Islands is sent?
BEET SUGAR
Although the cane fields of the moist, hot countries yield great quantities of sugar, there are other sources from which this useful product comes. In the year 1747 a German scientist discovered that sugar can be made from beets, and now about two thirds of our supply come from these plants.
The sugar beet is not just like the plant of the same name which we raise for table use. It is white, and sometimes weighs as much as ten or fifteen pounds. Beets do not need so much water nor so much heat as sugar cane, so they can be raised in Germany, France, Austria, Russia, and other countries, as well as in California, Utah, and Nebraska, in our own land.
In some parts of California there are fields of beets stretching for miles. The seeds are planted in rows, which, after the plants have come up, are thinned. In four or five months from the time the seeds are planted, the beets are ready to harvest.
On most of the large ranches the beets are dug by machinery. Men then move back and forth in the fields, cutting off the leaves and a little of the upper part of the beet, for this contains too much mineral matter to be of value in making sugar. The workmen use large knives, and they walk on their knees.
The beets are now taken to the factory in wagons, or, if it is far away, they are sent on trains. When the loads of beets reach the factory, they are weighed. The teamsters then drive up an inclined plane to a plank roadway. There are generally several of these. On each side of the road or platform are deep V-shaped trenches with wooden sides, in which streams of water run. When the wagon has reached the right spot, the platform upon which it rests is raised in a slanting position, and the beets fall into the trench.
A basket full of beets is taken from each load and tested, to see how much sugar they contain, for this determines the price to be paid.
The stream of water in the trench carries the beets along, just as they would be carried in a brook. This, you see, is a quick and easy way of washing them.
The streams of water carry the beets into the factory, where they are cut up into strips by machinery. The juice is then washed out in vats containing warm water, and is boiled down in great tanks. The raw sugar is refined much as the cane sugar is. After the sugar has been dried, it is run through spouts into sacks held open to catch it as it comes out. One hundred pounds are put into each sack. One workman sews the sacks up and another wheels them to the wareroom. Train loads are carried away to be distributed in the parts of our country that do not produce sugar.
MAPLE SUGAR
You would enjoy helping to make some maple sugar, I am sure, so let us make a trip to the woods of Vermont or New York, where maple sugar is made from the sap of the sugar-maple tree.
You will need your cap and mittens, as the sugar season is the early spring, when there is yet snow on the ground. Besides, some of the work is done at night, and you will not wish to miss that.
The owner of the "sugar bush" bores holes into the trees a short distance from the ground, into which he slips small spouts, called "spiles."