356 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



NOVEMBEK 15, 1919. 



FUEL OIL FOR SUGAR FACTORIES. 

 The story of the fuel-supply for sugar-cane 

 lacL.iries is one of steadily increasing efficiency. In 

 the olden days the megass had to be carried by hand, 

 and sun-dried : with the modern central factory tnills, 

 the extraction is so complete as to render drying 

 unnecessary, and the fuel is also conveyed by mechani- 

 cal ineaus to furnaces of special construction. But 

 with the greater power required by the most modern 

 factories, the su{)ply of megass has not always been 

 sufficient. In some places, as in Louisiana, coal has 

 been used as an adjunct; in other places wood has been 

 employed. We are now confronted, says the Louisi- 

 ana Planter (September 20), with what seems to be 

 a novel idea. 



There was some little comp'aint this last season that 

 the s'ig:ir planti-rs of Cuba did not have enough fuel, and we 

 were led to wonder what need they had for fuel when the 

 bagas.'e ^vas competent. Thus, it gradually appeared that 

 repeated pressures, and the considerable dilution of the cane 

 juice by the maceration process at the mills have given 

 a total amount of dilute juice that it was beyond the power 

 of the bagasse, no matter how excellent, to furnish enough 

 steam satisfactoriy' to evaporate, although the evapornting 

 apparatus had been carried on from the old double effects 

 up to triple and quadruples. Still fuel was wanted, and it 

 was got in the best way possible during the scarcity of 

 shipping last year 



We now find that the Texas Oil Company contemplates 

 the establishment of a fuel oil station at Antilla in Cuba ; 

 that the United Fruit Company has begun the erection of 

 fuel oil tanks on its properties at Banea and Preston in 

 Eastern Cuba. It is reported that six tanks will be erected 

 at present by the American company, the iron work, ail 

 prepared for riveting together, having already arrived at 

 Antilla by a steamer from New York in July, and a super- 

 intendent and competent foreman have also arrived at Antilla 

 for the construction work. 



These tanks are to be erected on the separate properties, 

 the Banes division having two tanks of 20,000 barrels 

 capacity each, and located at Macabi, where Central Boston, 

 the sugar factory, is located. The head offices of the company 

 are at Banes, and Macabi is 9 mdes distant. A third 

 tank having a capacity of .0,000 barrels of oil, will be built 

 at Banes The Piestoii division gets two tanks of 20,000 

 gallons capacity each, and these will be erected near the 

 Preston central factory, and a third tank of .5,000 barrels 

 capacity will be erected at Guaro, 10 miles away, on the 

 company's narrow gauge railroad. 



The statement is made that these two sugar factories of 

 the United Fruit Company are perhaps the first in the 

 district to substitute oU as fuel in place of coal, wood and 

 bagasse, formerly used. We are led to wonder what they 

 are going to do with their bagasse, but we know that at 

 Pre.ston very extensive experiments have been made in the 

 manufacture of bagasse into paper, and that large quantities 

 of baga.sse were sent through to Wisconsin for the purpose 

 of experimentation, and that considerable quantities of 

 ground sugir-cane were also sent to Wisconsin as a dry 

 fibre with the view of developing wliether or not it would 

 pay to send the sugar in that shape to the United States, 

 for elaboration by the diffusion process in a beet sugar 

 factory. We believe the experiments in securing sugar in 

 this way have been found unsatisfactory, but the 

 Dianufacture of paper from bagasse is one of the 



possibilities that perhaps has not yet been finally worked 

 out satisfactorily, but certainly will be some time in the 

 future. We should say that the United Fruit Company's 

 factories will surely burn considerable bagasse, utilizing it as 

 fuel, before they shall have learned the way to convert it into 

 p*per and make an industrial success of it It may be that 

 wiiliiu a few years we shall find Cuba dotted with oil tanks, 

 simi ar to the custom in Louisiana, where our manufacture 

 of high-grade sugar demands the addition of some fuel, even 

 where the use of bagasse as a fuel is made industrially suc- 

 cessful 



TOLERANCE OF SALT BY THE 

 SUGAR-CANE 



In the editorial in the Agricultural News for 

 October LS, 1919, on salt and the growth of coast- 

 land plants no jreference was made to the following 

 results obtained in India in connexion with salinity 

 and the sngar-eane. These results have ordj' just 

 come to hand, and are to be found in a paper in the 

 AgrictdturaL Journal of India, Vol. XIV, Part '.i. 

 In this paper it is shown that while salinity in large 

 amount) causes injury, the sugar-cane, and especially 

 certain varieties, is distinctly a facultative halophyte 

 — an opinion thit was expressed in the editorial 

 on the subject referred to above. The chief conclu- 

 sions arrived at in India are as follou's : — 



Soft, thick, juicy varieties do not come up at all in 

 saline land, while ihin, hard and less juicy varieties come up 

 fairly well. 



Sugarcane varietic< and seedlings which do not come 

 up well under saline conditions, come up far better under less 

 saline conditions, and this difference in growth is traced to be 

 due chiefly to sodium chloride. 



The effect of saline irriaation is to sive an impure juice, 

 containing large amounts of chlorine and potash, and a 

 determination of chlorine alone, which is comparatively easy, 

 will give one an idea of the approximate quantity of the other. 



Theu.suil method of dcterui iilug chlorine — evaporating 

 the juice, igniting the same and determining chlorine in the 

 water extract - not being found quite feasible in a field labora- 

 tory, a new method of directly determining chlorine in the 

 juice by lime-water and alumina cream is suggested. This 

 is found to give a correct idea of the relative quantity of 

 chlorine in juices, and is also quicker and better adapted to a 

 field laboratory. 



The chloriio content of a variety depends upon (a) con- 

 ditions of soil, water, etc , under which it is grown; (b) nature 

 of the variety itself. 



The effect of large quantities of clilrine in any juice is 

 to lower the sucrose, purity, and glucose contents ot 

 that juice. 



A large percentage of soluble salts in the juices of canes 

 grown under saline conditions is usually associated with 

 a low glucose content, and interferes with the crystallization 

 of sucrose. 



The inferior kind of /<ii;i(crv obtained on the Cane- 

 breeding Station from North Indian cane varieties is due- 

 among other factors, to the high chlorine content of the juices. 

 Determination of chlorine in the juice would give one an 

 indication of the relative quality of /a^vvy one is likely to 

 get. 



