farmers

MAKING SORHGUM LASSES

   In the summer of 1933-34-and 35 my father had a sorghum mill and cooked sorghum molasses. Our mill was about half way through what is now know as Craig Lane. It was on a piece of property owned by W. T. Marrs.
   We had a mill that my father begged borrowed or some how acquired. The mill had two rollers, about 18 inches long and they sat upright. It had gears on the top and was geared so that the gear on the rollers turned much faster than the power applied gear. It had a long pole at the top and you hitched the horse to the pole and the animal just walked in circles.
   There was a piece of sheetmetal about three feet long and shaped like a V that was used for a drain trough. The juice from the mill drained into the trough and down into a barrel carefully engineered so as to be placed in proper spot to catch the flow of juices.
   The farmers would bring their sorghum cane in wagons to the mill. My oldest sister had a little seat my dad made for her and she sat there feeding the cane into the mill.
   The horse we used was an old mare that had seen her better days. My father would stop at least every hour and give her a little break. He took her over to a little spring and let her drink and stand in the shade a few minutes. It was always hot weather because the cane wasn�t ready until the middle of the summer. We had a little rubber tired wagon that we took with us in the morning: but we had to walk as my father felt sorry for our horse having to pull us lazzzzy younguns to the mill. The only farmer I remember was a man named Jones. Everyone called him farmer Jones. He was no relation to our family. He lived just across the pasture from us for a few years.
     I remember one day we were working and it was very hot. My father still smoked at the time. He rolled his own. He always used a tobacco named Country Gentleman. He had put his Country gentleman along with his matches on a rock near the cooking pan. He did this so he wouldn�t get it sweaty. In a little bit he happened to look over that way and the sun had gotten on the rock, and had ignited one or all the matches. It had caught his Country Gentleman on fire and had all ready burned all of his Cigarette papers. Everybody got a good laugh out of that.

THE COOKING PAN
The juices is pored from the barrel and carried to the pan. The pan was about three feet wide and six feet long. My dad built a rock foundation with rocks. Stacked them on top of each other until they were about 2 feet high. The pan was then set on the rocks. This gave you enough room to build a fire under the pan. The fire had to be almost as long as the pan so as to heat it equally. This took some wood cutting a head of time.
     The juice was poured into the pan at the west end.In our case the pan was set up east and west. The east end was the finished product. The pan had divisions in it. When you put juice in the west end it went into a compartment. after it cooked for a few minutes the foam was skimmed off and the little trap door was opened and it was sent to the next compartment. Then you refilled the first compartment. Then you went through he same procedure in number two compartment. This same process continued until it reached the final compartment Here it was given a final skim and drained through a drain plug into your buckets. The bucket was then closed tightly and allowed to cool.
     My father seldom got money for his labor. The usual thing was to get paid with syrup. My memory tells me that we got one bucket and the farmer got two. My father usually took it to John Garrison store and paid on the grocery bill. If there was more than enough for bills Mr. Garrison would buy it from us. Usually at ten cents a bucket. I can still remember seeing Mr. Garrison tearing a piece of paper off of brown grocery bag and dipping it in the syrup and watch it flow. Also the color seemed to mean a lot. It would tell you if it was cooked enough or overcooked. This seemed to mean something about how good it was.
     All of this made a pretty big mess around the mill. Most of the time the farmer would load the sorghum pummies in his wagon and take it home to feed his livestock.
     The thing to remember is this was the good old days everyone talks about. I will let you decide if you believe that.
TOMMY JONES