In forty years, only a little more than a single generation, the world’s supply of sugar has been multiplied by five, from a little more than three million tons a year to nearly eighteen million tons.  The total world output in 1875 would not today supply the demand of the United States alone.  This increase in production has been made possible by improvements in the methods and the machinery of manufacture.  Until quite recently, primitive methods were employed, much like those used in the production of maple sugar on the farm, although on larger scale.  More attention has been paid to varieties of the plant and some, though no very great, change has been made in field processes.  In Cuba, the cane is planted in vast areas, in thousands of acres.  Some of the estates plant and cultivate their own fields, and grind the cane in their own mills.  Others, known as “colonos,” are planters only, the crop being sold to the mills commonly called “centrales.”  In its general appearance, a field of sugar-cane looks quite like a field of corn, but the method of cultivation is somewhat different.  The slow oxen are still commonly used for plowing and for carts.  This is not because of any lack of progressive spirit, but because experience has shown that, under all conditions of the industry, the ox makes the most satisfactory and economical motive power, notwithstanding his lack of pace.

The Encyclopaedia describes sugar-cane as “a member of the grass family, known botanically as Saccbarum officinarum.  It is a tall, perennial grass-like plant, giving off numerous erect stems 6 to 12 feet or more in height, from a thick solid jointed root-stalk.”  The ground is plowed in rows in which, not seed, but a stalk of cane is lightly buried.  The rootlets and the new cane spring from the joints of the planted stalk which is laid flat and lengthwise of the row.  It takes from a year to a year and a half for the stalk to mature sufficiently for cutting and grinding.  Several cuttings, and sometimes many, are made from a single planting.  There are tales of fields on which cane has grown for forty years without re-planting.  A few years ago, ten or fifteen years was not an unusual period.  The present tendency is toward more frequent planting, but not annual, as offering a better chance for stronger cane with a larger sugar content.  The whole process of cultivation and field treatment is hard, heavy work, most of it very hard work.  Probably the hardest and heaviest is the cutting.  This is done with a long, heavy-bladed knife, the machete.  The stalk, from an inch to two inches in thickness, is chopped down near the root, the heavy knife swung with cut after cut, under a burning sun.  Only the strongest can stand it, a wearying, back-breaking task.  After cutting, the stalk is trimmed and loaded on carts to be hauled, according to distance, either directly to the mill or to the railway running thereto.  The large estates have their own railway systems running to all the fields of the plantation.  These are private lines operated only for economy in cane transportation.  Most of the crushing mills measure their daily consumption of cane in thousands of tons.  While every precaution is taken, there are occasional fires.  In planting, wide “fire lanes,” or uncultivated strips are left to prevent the spread of fire if it occurs.