110

• For, if the skies too frequently relent,
• Crude flows the Cane-juice, and will long elude
• The boiler’s wariest skill: thy Canes will spring
• To an unthrifty loftiness; or, weighed¹ [425]

• Down by their load, (Ambition’s curse,) decay.

• ENCOURAGE thou thy boilers; much depends
• On their skill’d efforts. If too soon they strike,
• E’er all the watery particles have fled;
• Or lime sufficient granulate the juice: [430]
• In vain the thickning liquor is effus’d;
• An heterogeneous, an uncertain mass,

• And never in thy coolers to condense.

• OR, planter, if the coction they prolong
• Beyond its stated time; the viscous wave [435]

VER. 428. If too soon they strike,] When the Cane-juice is granulated sufficiently, which is known by the Sugar’s sticking to the ladle, and roping like a syrup, but breaking off from its edges; it is poured into a cooler, where, its surface being smoothed, the christallization is soon completed. This is called striking. The general precept is to temper high, and strike low. When the Muscovado is of a proper consistence, it is dug out of the cooler, and put into hogsheads; this is called potting. The casks being placed upon staunchions, the melasses drips from them into a cistern, made on purpose, below them, to receive it. The Sugar is sufficiently cured, when the hogshead rings upon being struck with a stick; and when the two canes, which are put into every cask, shew no melasses upon them, when drawn out of it.

---