The sugar-canes are planted here during the months of March, April, May, and even June and July. In the ridges between them maize and kidney-beans are planted, the cultivation of which is favourable to the sugar-cane: first the beans are gathered in, when the ground is weeded, and cleared, and loosened around the roots of the canes; then the maize is pulled, when a second weeding and clearing takes place; after which the sugar is tall enough to shade the ground, and prevent the growth of weeds. The first canes are ripe about May. The Cayenne cane yields best, and thrives in low grounds, the soil a mixture of sand and loam. The Creole cane takes the hill, and, though less productive, is supposed to yield sugar of a better quality. The cool months from May to September are the properest for boiling sugar. After October, the canes yield less juice by one-eighth, sometimes by one-fourth, and nearly as much more is lost in claying by the lightness of the sugar, the pots of three arobas not returning after the operation more than two and a half at most. The clay used in refining the sugar is dug close to the mill; it feels soft and fat in the fingers. It is placed in a wooden trough, with a quantity of lie made by steeping the twigs of a small shrub, which has a taste of soda[119], and worked up and down with a machine, something like a churn-staff, until it is of the consistence of thick cream, when it is ready for use. I suppose that the main business of expressing the juice, boiling it, and drying the sugars, as well as cleansing them, are carried on here as in every part of the world, though probably there may be some difference in every country, or even in every sugar-work; nor can the distilling the spirits be very different. Nothing is wasted in a sugar-house; the trash that remains after the canes are pressed, when dried, assists as fuel in heating the furnaces; the sweet refuse water that runs off from the still is eagerly drank by the oxen, who always seem to fatten on it. [Note 119: This is brought to the Engenhos of the district from the lake of Jacarepagua. I had no opportunity of seeing the whole plant.]