Vol. XI. No. 277. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



387 



existing organization such as a scientific societj' or an 

 agricultural society, or the first eollect-ions may be 

 housed and exhibited in a public library until the time 

 that a special building becomes necessarj-. In any case, 

 it must be realized that the work in a museum is never 

 finished. A museum that is regarded as complete has 

 lost its activity and is fast hastening to decay. 



SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



THE PRODUCTION OF WHITE SUGAR 

 DIRECTLY FROM SUGAR-CANE. 



The present efforts among cane and lieet growers to 

 produce pure white sugars by one continuous process from 

 the canes or the beets, are attracting much attention 

 throughout the sugar world. The ^\'iese Process Company 

 for making white granulated sugar has been tested at 

 Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada, and the results are said to 

 have been very satisfactory. These experiments at 

 Wallaceburg, however, have been chiefly in the way of 

 refining raw cane sugar imported from the West Indies under 

 the privilege given to the sugar factories in Canada to 

 import free of duty, or comparatively free of duty, as much 

 raw cane sugar as they produced of sugar from home-grown 

 beets in their own country. This concession to these beet 

 sugar factories has led to a considerable development of this 

 method of cane sugar refining in these same beet sugar 

 factories. 



Pure white beet sugars have been made for years directly 

 from beet juice without the use of bone black. Dr. von 

 Lipmann inaugurated the addition of the sulphuring process 

 to the standard carbonatation process in Germany some 

 twenty years ago and has been successfully making pure 

 white sugars ever since. This same process has been utilized 

 in Canada in its beet sugar factories, and of course, they have 

 been disposed to make efforts to handle cane sugars in the 

 same way, although their process begins with cane sugar, and 

 not with cane juice. Beet sugar is singularly free of glucose, 

 while cane sugar always contains more or less of it and cane 

 juice contains still more. 



We shall discuss first the success in refining cane sugars 

 in Canada, and later some of the other features of the 

 business. 



The beet sugar factory at Wallaceburg when used as 

 a sugar refinery has a capacity of 200 tons of refined sugar 

 per day of twenty-four hours. There is said to be another 

 factory, located at Marine City, Michigan, of still less capacity 

 and that a third plant is to be erected at Toledo, Ohio. It 

 is said that at Wallaceburg no lime or sulphurous acid gas 

 is used in the final processes with cane sugar, although they 

 are used with beet sugar, but in the final processes more 

 attention is given to filtration and the thorough purification 

 of the cane syrup, including its decolorization, are secured in 

 this way. The results seem to have been satisfactory and 

 the sugars produced at Wallaceburg, as well as at Marine 

 City, Michigan, have been sold in competition with sugar 

 turned out by the Canadian sugar refinery, which has a full 

 bone black filtering equipment. It is stated that the cane 

 sugars brought equal prices with the white beet sugars. 



The advantage of this process of sugar-refining in 

 a beet sugar house is that the beet factories already have all 

 the machinery ready to handle raw sugar in this way, 



excepting the melting pans and a few minor machines, the 

 cost of which would be but a few hundreds of dollars, and 

 with this limited outlay these beet factories can handle raw 

 sugars to their heart's content throughout all the dull 

 season, provided, always, that they can make any money at it. 



The beet sugar factories being located back in the interior, 

 it becomes quite a problem as to how they can receive their 

 freights of foreign sugars and distribute their refined product. 

 All these matters, however, are yielding to the good sense 

 of the railroad management and can doubtless be adjusted. 



The next most serious problem is the question of the loss 

 in this process of refining. It has always been thought that 

 in refining raw cane sugars the bone black process would give 

 the largest possible yield. In liquoring sugars with a white 

 liiiuor, or by washing them white in the centrifugals, the 

 losses are ordinaril}- greater and yet by this Wie«e process it 

 was found in certain experiments that from lOOtb. of raw 

 sugar nearly 93itt). of refined sugar were obtained. It was 

 estimated at Wallaceburg that in handling approximately 16 

 million pounds of Java sugar the manufacturing cost of pro- 

 ducing 100 ft), of refined sugars reached 41 2c. The 

 resulting sugar was sold in successful competition with 

 first-class refined sugar and seemed to give satisfaction. 

 All this speaks well for this method of production, but by 

 it cane sugar is still denied the advantage of being made in 

 one continuous process directly from the juice of the sugar- 

 cane. Dr Ton Lipmann's method in Germany revolutionized 

 the production of pure white sugar there in many of their 

 great sugar factories, although some still adhere to raw sugar 

 production. It has been the dream of thousands of sugar 

 planters everywhere that the day would come when with our 

 improved mechanism, our better methods of decolorizing by 

 the proper use of sulphur or by improved methods of filtra- 

 tion, we should be able to produce pure white sugars without 

 the cost of rehandling or remelting, all of which go to make 

 the expenses of sugar-refining, and all of which can practi- 

 cally be saved in the handling of cane juice in the original 

 sugar factories and turn out there the high grade product 

 at a single process. 



This new method, known as the Wiese process, is 

 attracting much attention and may revolutionize tlie cane 

 sugar industry of the world by carrying the refineries right 

 into, and making them part of, the great sugar factories, 

 where the bulk of the sugars of the world are now produced. 

 (From the Louisiana Planter, November 2, 1912.) 



The Fibre ot Gomphocarpus Semilunatus.— 

 A note based on information regarding this plant in the Kew 

 /kdletiii, 1906, p. 397, and the Bulletin of the Imperial 

 Institute, Vol. Ill, p.316, as well as in the Agricultural Bulle- 

 tin 0/ the Straits and Federated Malay States, was given in the 

 Agricultural Nexvs, Vol. IX, p. 72. It appears, further, from 

 the Annual Report of the Biological Agricultural Institute, 

 Amani, for 1911-12, in Der Pflanzer for September 1912, 

 that the work in the laboratory of that institution included 

 experiments in the extraction of the fibre from the stem of 

 the plant by soaking it in water. The investigation showed 

 that, after two or three days' soaking of strips of the 

 inner bark, these rotted, together with the fibres. The 

 preparation of the fibre without soaking in water is very 

 laborious and can only be carried out by natives, who 

 emploj' it for simply making rope for their own use. 



It may be added that G. semilunatus is sometimes 

 referred to as Asclepias semilunata. The plant is related to 

 the Mudar fibre of India (Calotropis gigantea). 



