Vol. V. No. 103. 



THE AGRIOULTUEAL NEWS. 



99 



SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



The Economics of the Sugar Industry. 



UntJer this title there apj)e;u-8 in the Louisiana 

 Planter for March 3, 190(5, an instructive article from 

 which the following extracts are taken. The writer, 

 in prefacing his remarks, draws attention to the fact, 

 that there is no industry to which more labour-saving 

 devices have been offered, than that of sugar; but 

 that, in the face of keen competition there is need of 

 still further development. He says : — 



One direction in which we of the cano sugar world 

 are .sadly deficient, is in the economic utilization of the 

 b}--product.s of our industry. Paper making from bagasse 

 Las not yet been made an industrial success. The hundreds 

 of thousands of tons of cane tops annually left in our fields 

 Lave not yet been successfully utilized as stock feed, and the 

 many thousands of tons of common molasses that we annually 

 jiroduce have not yet been converted to anything like their 

 proper value for stock feeding, or for the production of 

 alcohol. 



The German beet sugar producers can teach us some 

 lessons in sugar economics that may have great ^■alue. The 

 leaves and tops of the beets are regarded as valuable for 

 stock feeding, realizing from •S!1'25 to .?.5'25 per acre to the 

 producer. 



The boot factories have also been endeavouring ti^ utilize 

 tlieir molasses for stock feeding. This is a much more 

 difficult problem with them than it is in the cane sugar 

 ■world, as cane molasses, being so much better Havoured, and 

 so free from alkaline salts, is consumed eagerly by nearly all 

 kinds of animals. Beet molasses, however, has commanded 

 a very considerable market by its use in the manufacture of 

 alcohol, a trade that we hope will also reach our cane 

 molasses. 



We note now that even the lime from the beet sugar 

 factories is being sold as a fertilizer, while we in the cane 

 sugar world, or some of us, are throwing away our filter press 

 cakes that have a high fertilizing value. If we are succes.s- 

 fully to withstand the severe, old-fashioned competition that 

 comes to us from the manufacturers of central Europe, who 

 are practising the extremest economy in the cause of the 

 manufacture of sugar, and are securing the very highest 

 order of results in the way of yield, we must unquestionably 

 imitate them, and practise like economies, in order to 

 secure comparatively equal effectiveness in the way of results. 



The Food Value of Sugar. 



In the Lou iniana Planter for March 3, last, there is 

 a brief note on 'Sugar considered as an article of food.' 

 It has reference to the researches in this direction 

 of Dr. Lee, Professor of Physiology at Columbia 

 University : — 



He claims that fatigue is a result of certain chemical 

 cbanges in the body due to muscular exertion. Sugar taken 

 internally arrests and prevents these changes. The sugar 

 replenishes the carfiohj'drates that are wasted by exertion, 

 and causes the fatigue due to this waste to disappear. On 

 this account, Dr. Lee incidentally says to his friends that 

 when they go for a long tramp, tliey must not bother about 

 carrying a lunch, but, with half a dozen lumps of sugar in 

 their pockets, they can eat them when they get tired or 

 Lungrj', and will at once find their strength and freshness 

 renewed. 



Men and mules are a good deal alike when it comes to 

 getting tired, and the quick rendezvous at the molasses tank 

 of the working .stock after a hard day's work, shows the keen 

 discrimination and high appreciation of our humble confrere 

 in the sugar business, the nuile, without whose aid our 

 industry would be seriousl3- crippled. 



Seedling Sugar-canes in British Guiana. 



In continuation of the statement published in the 

 Agricultural N'ews (Vol. IV, p. 242), giving the com- 

 parative results of the cultivation of seedling canes as. 

 compared with Bourbon canes on plantation Diamond, 

 British Guiana, Mr. John Fleming, the manager, has 

 been good enough to supply complete returns for the 

 year 1905, as follows: — 



In the previous four years the seedlings were better 

 than the Bourbon in 1901, by 29 per cent.; in 1902, by 21 per 

 cent.; in 1903, by 14 per cent.; and in 1904, by 31 per cent. 

 If to this is added the return for 1905, viz., 33 per cent., the 

 average superiority of seedling canes over the Bourbon cane 

 on plantation Diamond, over a period of fi'.'e years, is at the 

 rate of 25'6 per cent. 



This is conclusive as showing that, under the conditions 

 existing at Diamond, seedling canes te.sted over a period of 

 five years and on an area of over 2,000 acres, give nearly 

 26 per cent, more sugar than the Bourbon. 



Another use for Molasses. 



The Louisiana Planter for February 17 last, 

 contains the following note on using molasses in the 

 manufacture of briquettes : — ■ 



We have sometimes urged in this journal that the 

 greatest relief the sugar industry can hope for is that of such 

 a raf)idly increasing consumption as to hold prices where 

 they are. There is no use of our expecting that the farmers 

 on the great plains of central Europe are going back to the 

 culture of wheat, barley, rye, and oats, in which they have 

 been engaged for hundreds of years, when the nineteenth 

 century demonstrated to them so thoroughly that they could 

 do better with beet culture ; and that with the advent of 

 beet culture on those plains, the civilization of their people 

 has risen to a far higher standard than the most sanguine 

 expected a half-century ago. 



It becomes us, then, to endeavour in every direction 

 to increase the consumption of sugar, and we notice now that 

 the French journal La Nature, reports that molasses has 

 been successfully used to make up coal dust into briquettes. 

 The molasses is utilized in the proportion of 1 to 1'5 per 

 cent., and in warm weather a little linseed oil is added to 

 counteract the tendency to absorb moisture, that has been 

 shown by briquettes thus prepared. 



