I hope my readers will not think that I have gone too much into details.  It is in small things that so many failures take place.  As it is much easier to do anything when you are shown than when so much has to be guessed, it is my desire to make the road for beginners as smooth as possible, which must be my excuse if any is required.  It is as well that those who intend to turn their attention to working in leather should begin by making a bag; the experience gained in cutting, fitting, putting together, and finishing will be useful when larger and more difficult pieces of work are undertaken.—­Amateur Mechanics.

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MOLASSES, HOW MADE.

The New England Grocer says that the manufacture of molasses is really the manufacture of sugar up to a certain stage, for molasses is the uncrystallized sirup produced in the making of sugar.  The methods of manufacture in the West Indies vary very considerably.  In the interior and on the smaller plantations it is made by a very primitive process, while on the larger plantations all the appliances of modern science and ingenuity are brought to bear.  Each planter makes his own sugar.  It is then carried to the sea coast and sold to the exporters, by whom it is shipped to this country.  The quality and grade of the molasses varies with each plantation.  Two plantations side by side may produce entirely different grades.  This is owing to the soil, which in Porto Rico and other localities in the West Indies seems to change with almost every acre.  The cane from which the sugar and molasses is made is planted by laying several pieces of it in holes or trenches.  The pieces are then covered with earth to the depth of two or three inches.  In about two weeks sprouts appear above the surface.  Then more earth is put in, and as the sprouts grow, earth is added until in three or four months the holes are filled up.  The planting is done from August to November, and the cutting progresses throughout the greater part of the year.  The cane grows to a height of seven or eight feet, in joints each about a foot long.

When the cane is in proper condition for cutting, as shown by its appearance, an army of workmen take possession of the field.  Each is armed with a long, broad knife, like a butcher’s cleaver.  They move down the lines of cane like an army, and while the cutting is going on the fields present an interesting sight, the sword-like knives flashing in the sun, the 300 or 400 laborers, the carpet of cut cane, the long line of moving carts, and the sea of standing cane, sometimes extending for miles and miles, stirred by the breeze into waves of undulating green.  The laborers employed on these plantations are largely negroes and Chinese coolies.  When the cane is ripe, they proceed to the field, each armed with a matchet.  Spreading over the plantation, they commence the cutting of the cane, first by one cut at the top, which takes off the long leaves and that part which is worthless, except as fodder for the cattle.  A second cut is then given as near the root as possible, as the nearer the ground the richer the cane is in juice.  The cut cane is allowed to fall carelessly to the ground.