The crop is ready to be cut one year after planting, so that harvesting and grinding begin in March and are finished in May. As soon as the cane is cut it is stripped of its leaves and taken to the mill. Part of the leaves is utilized as straw for the cattle and the remainder is burnt. If it should be decided to follow this crop by one of ratoon cane, the spaces between the rows are then ploughed, fertilizer is added and the process of irrigation and banking is kept up until the ratoons reach maturity. In 1910 there were thirty-four cane mills in Spain, divided into two classes: first, the _trapiche_, a small affair where the juice obtained from the little cane that is ground is made into table syrup, and, second, the _fabrica_, where white and yellow sugars and molasses are manufactured. The average fabrica is well equipped and managed. The diffusion method of extracting the juice from the cane is employed to a large extent. At the beginning of the refining process the juice is treated with sulphur and lime, after which it is clarified in the usual way. The heavy impurities are removed by bag filters and the clear juice is decolorized by filtration through bone-char. The first liquor is boiled to a fine-grained massecuite, which is purged of its mother liquor in centrifugal machines and dried in large cones[92] of white sugar, which are broken up into small pieces and used in that form. A fine white granulated sugar is boiled from the second liquor, while from the third and fourth liquors soft yellow sugars are made. The final molasses is distilled into alcohol. That the outlook for the cane-sugar industry is far from promising is evidenced by the fact that the output has fallen off from 34,548 tons in 1900 to 6,359 tons in 1915. The area available for cane culture is limited and too far from the tropics to give satisfactory crop results. Then again, a high surtax has had the effect of restricting the consumption, which at the present time is somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 tons per annum, all told. As the foregoing figures show, nearly all the country’s requirements are served by beet sugar, concerning which a word or two may be timely at this point. In 1899, the year following the conclusion of the Spanish-American war, which cost Spain her colonies, the duty upon foreign sugar brought into that country was increased from fifty pesetas to eighty-five pesetas per 220.4 pounds, and the excise tax was fixed at twenty-five pesetas. This legislation effectually barred out the foreign article and at the same time stimulated the home industry. Much capital that was withdrawn from the lost colonies was invested in the culture of sugar beets and the manufacture of beet sugar. The profits realized from these operations were very large at first, which naturally led to expansion and finally overproduction.