illCHIGAX BEET SUGAR 379 



THE UTILIZATION OF SUGAR FACTORY BY-PRODUCTS. 



PROF. C. D. SMITH, DIRECTOR OF MICHIGAN EXPERIMEXT STATIOX. 



Beets are carried from the storage slieds to the factory by a current 

 of water which partly washes them. The cleansing is completed before 

 the beets reach the automatic scales. As soon as they are weighed 

 the slicers cut the roots into small triangular shreds of the size of an 

 ordinary lead pencil. These clean, white, shredded beets are conveyed 

 to iron or steel tanks in which they are soaked for an hour, or there- 

 abouts, in warm water to extract the sugar. When the water is 

 drawn off the residue, still white and clean is conveyed to the pulp 

 pile, and is then known as beet pulp. 



With the processes to which the juices of the beet are subjected in 

 the manufacture of sugar, we are not at present concerned. To purify 

 the juices, they are treated with lime and carbonic acid gas, which unite 

 in forming carbonate of lime, which is separated in the filter press, giv- 

 ing as a second waste product the lime cakes of the factory. 



In most of the modern beet sugar factories the potash is removed 

 from the molasses, by passing the molasses on one side of a thin mem- 

 brane on the other side of which is clear water. By osmosis, part of 

 the potash goes through the membrane into the water, giving, as a third 

 by-product, this osmosis water. 



Finally, after all the sugar possible has been extracted that the pro- 

 cess permits, there remains a large amount of molasses containing 

 sugar in a non-crystallizable form, united with potash and various 

 gummy substances. This residual molasses constitutes the fourth by- 

 jtroduct of the factory. 



It is to the interest' alike of the factory owner and the farmer that 

 the best and most economical use possible be made of these waste pro- 

 ducts. We are to consider their utilization from the farmers' stand- 

 point. 



THE BEET PULP. 



The quantity of pulp per ton of beets depends, naturally, on the 

 amount of water which the ]>ulp contains. Under average Michigan 

 conditions it may not be far wrong to estimate the weight of the fresh 

 ])ulp turned out by the factory as fifty-three per cent of the weight of 

 the beets sliced. If, therefore, a factory has a capacity of six hundred 

 tons of beets per day tlie oul])ut »»f i)ulp daily will be not far from 

 three hundred and eighteen tons of pulp. If, then, the factory should 

 be in operation one liundred days during the season, the annual pro- 

 duct of pulp would be fully thirty-two thousand tons. 



Two uses for this tremendous amount of material suggest themselves 

 at once, as manure and as stock feed. Exi»eriments ai-e wanting to 

 furnish data as to the value of the beet pulp as a manure. According 

 to Trof ITeniy. of Wisconsin, one thousand pounds of this by-product 

 contain l)ut 1.4 i»ounds of nitrogen. .2 of a pound of phosphoric 



