Mary Smith Berry, aka Mamma Berry and Echol Berry, aka Poppy Berry, who lived in Fairview in Scott County, Virginia, are stripping sugar cane to make molasses. The horse in the background was used to turn a juicing mill which would squeeze the juice out of the sugar cane by running the stalks through a juicing mill. The juice was collected in tubs to be emptied into a molasses stir pan, or vat (usually a copper, tin or stainless steel) to cook until the juice cooks down into syrup called molasses which would take hours. The stir pan was heated by a wood fire underneath and the juice was stirred continuously; a green foam would form to be skimmed off as the juice cooked down. It was a long hot job, but the final outcome was a rich brown delicious syrup which could be eaten on homemade biscuits, to make cookies, or cakes or used as a sugar source which would make all the hard work worthwhile.  Molasses was commonly used in colonial times instead of sugar. 

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