108 THE BUREAU OF SCIENCE 



due to the large European beet-sugar crop and the largest crop 

 of cane sugar ever grown in Cuba, very low prices have pre- 

 vailed, and there has been very little demand for Philippine 

 sugar on the markets of the United States. One trial shipment 

 of 4,115,704 kilograms was made early in the season as against 

 176,195,210 kilograms last year. The Formosan crop was al- 

 most an entire failure, and for this reason middle and lower 

 class Philippine sugars have been in demand in the markets of 

 China and Japan and have brought very good prices. The first 

 shipments for the fiscal year 1913 have been 90,256,845 kilo- 

 grams as against 27,075,031 kilograms for the fiscal year 1912. 

 Nos. 1 and 2 sugars have had few buyers. 



The sudden change of market has had a marked effect on our 

 laboratory work. When sugar was shipped to the United States 

 sales were made on a polariscopic basis. This year the Chinese 

 dealers often have paid more for sugar simply on the color and 

 feel than its polarization warranted. This, as well as the short 

 crop, has affected the number of samples received. In spite of 

 all these circumstances, the total number of samples received 

 and polarized in Iloilo during the past fiscal year is 3,155, only 

 50 samples less than the number for the previous fiscal year, 

 which shows that the laboratory has greatly grown in the estima- 

 tion of the planters and dealers. 



Two central sugar mills have been started in the Visayan 

 Islands during the past year. They have a rated capacity of 15 

 tons of sugar in twenty-four hours each, but neither has ever 

 been able to obtain the rated capacity. However, both mills 

 have been highly successful when com.pared with the -former 

 crude methods of extraction. These two mills have been so suc- 

 cessful that plans have been made to have 7 central mills in 

 operation next season. In spite of their apparent success, the 

 local central mills are doing very poor work with poor operation. 

 They are vastly better than the native process, but one cannot 

 help but regret the loss which might be converted into a profit. 

 The hacenderos are accustomed to cheap labor. It is hard for 

 them to realize the advantage of paying a high-class man several 

 hundreds of pesos a month to operate the mill. In many cases 

 such a man will save his entire month's salary in a single day. 

 Our expert assisted in a test at one mill in order to demonstrate 

 the loss, and it was shown that, if the lost sugar be figured at 

 28.5 centavos a kilogram, the daily loss was ^440. A sugar 

 central mill no matter how small must be chemically controlled. 



Where it has not been feasible to erect central mills, the cen- 

 trifugal alone has been used to good advantage as a means of 



