THE HABITATION CERON : DESCRIPTION

Hello, my name is Audrey.

Let me introduce you the Habitation Ceron. She is made up of :

_ the ponds : used as fish ponds and as a source of water for the “gragerie” and the        vinegrar factory;

_ the mill : three rollers (cylinders of wood or,later, of cast iron) were used to crush the sugar cane;

_ the cane juice channel : the sugar cane juice, called “vesou” in Martinique, was transferred to the boiling room along a channel hewn out of stone. The rapid oxydation of the “vesou” meant that the whole circuit had to be cleaned with ashes twice a day;

_ the furnace : in the 17^th century each copper had its own furnace. An improvement, called “the English system”, dating from the beginning of the 18^th century (about 1720), was composed of a single furnace, a heating tunnel under the coppers and a chimnery to ensure the furnace drew well. Crushed sugar cane, called “bagasse”, was used for fuel;

_ the boiling room : the “vesou” was boiled in four fixed coppers called the “crew”. The syrup, which was purified and stirred to aerate it throughtout the boiling process, then cooled in the fight vat, called the “cooler”;

_ the ash box : under the grate of the furnace, some of the ashes were used to clean the cane juice channel;

_ the curing house : after the “cooler”, the sugar was put into conicalshaped pots, called “moulds”. The molasses dripped out throught a hole in the bottom. The moulds were placed on eathenware containers to colled the molasses and put to dry in the curing house, whose many windows meant that it was well-ventilated;

_ the “case negres” alley (once workers’ shacks);

_ the vinegrar factory : the molasses collected from the “moulds” was distilled to make “guildive”, tafia, rum and “coco merlot”, an industrial alcohol which was ancestor our agricultural rum which is made from the pure “vesou”.;

_ the “gragerie” (or the cassava mill) : the cassava root (manioc is the scientific name) was grated (“gragé” in creole) and the flour used to make cassava bread;

_ the former kitchen with bread oven;

_ the water conduit;

_the tropical garden composed a lot of tree (“jacquier, figuier maudit, cycas...) whose a very big tree called “Zamana Samanea Salman tree”

_ a lots of animals whose the “Matoutou Falaise” (Avicularia Versicolor), a harmless mygale spider classified second in the world for its beauty, and unique to Martinique.