276 



THE AGRICULTDKAL NEWS. 



SXPIEUBBE 7, 1918. 



SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



REVIEW OF THE WORiK OF TWO WEST 

 INDIAN SUGAR FACTORIES. 1918. 



At the instance of the Directors of Gunthorpe's Factory, 

 Aiitigua and Basseterre Factory, St. Kitts, the results of the 

 "working of these factories for the past season liave been 

 famished to the luipeiial Commissioner of Agriculture for 

 the West Indies. The following information based on these 

 reports is not without interest and value to those concerned 

 with the manufacture of sugar in the West Indies. 



The Antigua factory manufactured 7,316 tons of sugar 

 from 6-l,28'2 tons of canes; the St. Kitts factory 7,-314 tons 

 of Nugar from 62,35-5 tons of canes. 



The work of these factories is about up to the standard 

 reached in the last .season, .St. Kitts again leading slightly, as 

 on the previo\is occasion. 



The main features of the factories' work may be gathered 

 from Table 1- 



Table II shows the recovery and losses of sucrose. The 

 bverage composition of the cane dealt with, calculated from 

 the data supplied, is given in Table III. 



TABLE I. 



I91t*. 

 Antigua. .St. Kitts. 



Cad€ crusbfii., tons 



Jnice diluted, to'is 



Juice undiluted, tons 



Juice expressed per 100 oaue 



Jaice expressed per 100 parts ol juice 



in cane. Or sucrose extracted per 



100 parts of sucrose in cane 

 Sucrose in juice, tons 

 Commercial sugar made, tons 

 Purity diluted juice 

 Sucrose i'l 100 cane 

 Fibre in 1 00 cane 

 Sucrose in 100 megaiis 

 Juice in megass per 100 fibre 

 Juice lo/jt per 100 cane 

 Recovery i^ommercial sugar per 100 



sucrose in juice 

 Recovery sucrose per 100 sucrose 



in juice 

 Commercial sugar made per 100 



sucpise in cane 

 Calculated to !*6' sugar 

 Sacrose in abovf per 1 00 sucrose in 



cane 

 Tonf cane per ton ommercial sugar 

 Pfilfari/Alion sugar n.ode 

 IdolasH'.^R, Imperial gallons 

 MoJaWses per ton of sugar 

 Filial '.ake, U^ns 

 Rucro^f («' 100 Chw c-dke 



92-6 



89- 1 



99 i: 



92-4 



lOO-OO 



100 00 



The chaiacter oi the work done may best be appre- 

 ciated by comparison with that in the best factories in other 

 countries. The principal factor in determining the work of 

 a sugar factory is the etlioiency of the mills. Gunthorpe's 

 mills in the season under review extracted 93-85 per cent, 

 of the sucrose in the cane, and Basseterre 93'69, while the 

 average work of the mills in .Java for the crop of 1917 is 

 represented by an e.\traction of 88-9. 



(^ne point not to be overlooked is this- that the extrac- 

 tion of sucrose from the cane is influenced by the amount of 

 fibre that the cane contains. In Java the amount of fibre in 

 the cane averaged 1310 per cent.; in Antigua and St. Kitts 

 the averages were, respectively, 16 05 and 16^03, showing 

 these mills to be at a disadvantage in this respect. 



The recovery of sucrose from the sucrose in the juice, 

 that is to say, the work of the factories subsequent to the 

 mills, was good at St. Kitt-^, being 92^4 percent., it was 

 somewhat less efficient at .Antigua, where it was 891 per 

 cent. 



The recovery in the form of sucrose in the sugar sold 

 was at Antigua, 83^6 pt^r cent., at St. Kitts, 866, the 

 .Antigua factory producing a larger proportion of molasses. 



The foregoing review of the work of the past season 

 sht'ws that the L-baracter of the work at .Antigua and St. 

 Kitts, and the high level of efficiency reached, concerning 

 which comparisons were made last year in this Journal |Vo), 

 XVI, p. 356) have been well maintained. 



At the present time the greater part of the cuhune oil 

 extracted in the tropics is consumed locally by the natives for 

 culinary purposes. A considerable tonnage of the kernels is 

 shipped to the United .States for extraction of the oil. 

 Probably 80 per cent, of these kernels are extracted by th« 

 natives, wb' Vireak the nuts between two stones aftec 

 removing th<- outer busks (The /'erfunitrv ixntt K^ser^tinf 

 Oil Rtcord. July 2-3 1918.) 



