Department of Manufactures [pp. 429-439]

DEPARTMENT OF MANUFACTURES.
And some impress, upon their captives' sides,
Their master's cipher; while the infant throng
Strive bv the horns to hold the struggling ram,
Proud of their prowess. Nor meanwhile the
jest
Light bandied round, but innocent of ill,
Nor choral song, are wanting; echo rings.
SUGAR BOILING.
Thy foaming coppers well with fuel feed;
For a clear, strong, continued fire improves
Thy muscovado's color and its grain.
Yet vehement heat, protracted, will consume
Thy vessels, whether from the martial mine
Or from thine ore, bright Venus, they are
drawn;
Or hammer, or hot fusion, give them form.
If prudence guides thee, then, thy stores shall
hold
Of well-sized vessels a complete supply;
For every hour thy boilers cease to skim
(Now cancer reddens with the solar ray)
Defeats thy honest purposes of gain.
lNor small the risk (when piety, or chance,
Force thee fromi boiling to desist) to leave
Thy heated furnace with the gelid stream.
The chymist knows, when all dissolving fire
Bids the metalline ore abruptly flow,
What dread explosions, and what dire effects
A few cold drops of water will produce,
Uncautious, on the novel fluid thrown.
For grain and color, wouldst thou win, my
friend,
At every curious mart, the constant palm?
O'er all thy works let cleanliness preside,
Child of frugality, and, as the skum
Thick mantles o'er the boiling wave, do thou
The skum that mantles carefully remove.
From bloating dropsy, from pulmnonic ails,
Wouldst thou defend thy boilers (prime of
slaves)
For days, for nights, for weeks, for months, in volved
In the warm vapor's all relaxing steam;
Thy boiling-house be lofty; all stops
Open, anl pervious to the tropic breeze;
Whose cool perflation, woo'd through many a
grate,
Dispels the steamn, and gives the lungs to play.
The skill'd in chemio boast of modern arts,
Know from experiments, the sire of Truth,
In many a plant that oil, and acid juice,
And ropy mucilage, by iinature live;
These, envious, stop the much desired em brace
Of the essential salts, though coction bid
The aqueous particles to mount in air.
* * * * * *
While flows the juice mellifluent from the
cane,
Grudge not, my friend, to let thy slaves, each
morn,
But chief the sick and young, at setting day,
Themselves regale with oft repeated draughts
Of tepid nectar; so shall health and strength
Confirm thy negroes, and make labor light.
While flame thy chimneys, while thy coppers
foam,
How blithe, how jocund the plantation smiles!
By day, by night, resounds the choral song
Of glad barbarity; serene, the sun
Shines not intensely hot; the trade-wind
blows:
How sweet, how silken is its noontide breath!
While to far climes the fell destroyer, Death,
Wings his dark flight. Then seldom pray for
rain;
Rather for cloudless days thy prayers prefer;
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, weigh'd
Down by their load, (ambition's curse,) decay.
Encourage thou thy boilers; much depends
ton their skill'd efforts. If too soon they strike,
Ere all the watery particles have fled,
Or lime sufficient granulate the juice,
In vain the thickening liquor is effused,
A heterogenous, an uncertain mass,
And never in thy coolers to condense.
Or, planter, if the coaction they prolong
Beyond its stated time; the viscous wave
Will in huge flinty masses crystallize,
Which fi,rceful fingers scarce can crumble
down;
And which with its molasses ne'er will part;
Yet this, fast dripping in nectareous drops,
Not only betters what remains, but, when
WVith art fermented, yields a noble wine,
Than which nor Gallia, nor the Indian clime,
Where rolls the Ganges, can a nibler show.
So misers in their coffers lock that gold
Which, if allow'd at liberty to roam,
Would better them, and benefit mankind.
In the last coppiers, when the embrowning
wave
With sudden fury swells, some grease, un mix'd,
The foaming tumult sudden will compose,
And force to union the divided grain.
So when two swarms in airy battle join,
The winged heroes heap the bloody field,
Until some dust, thrown upward in the sky
Quell the wild conflict, and sweet peace re store.
False Gallia's sons, that hoe the ocean isles,
Mix with their sugar loads of worthlesssand,
Fraudful their weight of sugar to increasb.
Far be such guiles from Britain's honest
swains.
Such arts, a while, the unwary may surprise,
And benefit the impostor; but, ere long,
The skilful buyer will the fraud detect,
And, with abhorrence, reprobate the name.
DEPARTMIENT OF MANUFACTURES.
1. MANUFACTURES IN THE SOUTH.
We ask the attentive consideration of the reader to the following extract from an
able editorial in the last Dry-Goods Reporter:
" At the present moment, among the producers of cloth in those sections, namely,
the Northern and Middle States, which have hitherto been regarded as the chief seats
of manufacturing industry, there appears to be, and doubtless is, something less of
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