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.
_From the American Agriculturist Almanac._
SETTLE all your accounts, collect what is due you, and pay what you owe. "Short settlements make long friends." Examine your farm statistics, and see what have been the results of your experiments with the different kinds of manures, seeds, modes of tillage, &c., &c.; and note them well for future use. No farmer ought to be without such a book, in which all experiments should be carefully recorded at the time, and the results carried into a separate book for his own use hereafter; and if new and valuable discoveries are obtained, communicate them to some agricultural periodical for the benefit of the world. Recollect, you have the experience of thousands to guide your operations, and, by contributing to the general stock whatever may be useful, you are but returning to mankind a part of the benefits you have derived from them. But avoid twaddle and humbuggery, and oft-published statements, and prolix or tedious narration, and give all the circumstances material to the subjects in the briefest, plainest, simplest language possible. Above all things, send in your subscription to one or more valuable agricultural papers, and get as many of your neighbors to subscribe as possible; and consider, in so doing, you are benefiting yourself by it ten times as much as you are the publishers. Summer is peculiarly the time for making observations and experiments, and winter the time for communicating them. _Remember the poor_, not only in this month, but every month through the year, and especially during the inclemency of winter. You need not give so much to them outright, but endeavor to put them in a way of making themselves comfortable, by affording them employment, by which, you may be benefited, while doing them good. You thus confer on them a triple benefit, by furnishing them the means of comfortable subsistence, teaching them to help themselves, and avoiding the habit of receiving _charity_, which insensibly weakens their sense of self-dependance.