EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. 2. APRIL, 1891. No. 9. 



EDITORIAL Is^OTES. 



The following- brief accoiiiit of tlie practical results of recent investi- 

 gations in the manufacture of sorghum sugar by this Department, has 

 been furnished by Dr. H. W. Wiley, under whose direction they were 

 made. Aside from the great interest which attaches to the results 

 themselves in their application to the sugar industry, these researches 

 serve as another of the already numerous illustrations of the way in 

 which abstract inquiries carried on by purely scientific methods may 

 give results which can be at once applied, to the advantage of practical 

 agriculture. The practical value of the investigations, which now 

 promises to be very great, hinges upou what they have revealed regard- 

 ing the occurrence and properties of the gummy bodies referred to. 



Extensive experiments have been carried on in the Division of Chem- 

 istry of the Department of Agriculture during the past eighteen months, 

 looking to the application of alcohol in some practical method for the 

 manufacture of sugar from sorghum. 



The basis of thia study was found in the well known fact that the 

 gummy and mucilaginous substances which are naturally present in 

 sorghum juices, may be completely separated therefrom by alcohol. 

 Studies were therefore instituted looking to the recovery of the alcohol 

 employed, for the purpose of using it subsequently over and over again. 

 These experiments were completely successful on a laboratory scale. 



It was also found that the precipitated gummy and mucilaginous 

 bodies could be easily separated from the sirups in the filter press, 

 forming a hard, firm cake, easily detached from the filter cloths; that 

 the carbohydrate bodies present in the gums and mucilages were com- 

 pletely fermentable, giving a full theoretical yield of alcohol ; that in the 

 application of this method the sirups were more easily boiled to grain 

 in the strike pan; and that the sugars produced could be easily dried in 

 the centrifugal. 



The flavor of the molasses secured was greatly improved, and this 

 product, therefore, would be rendered more valuable in the market 

 both for direct table consumption and for mixing purposes. 



4G9 



