168 ANNUAL REPORT 



I have now before me the ISTew Jersey Agricultural Experi- 

 mental Station Bulletin, No. 41, for the year 1886, which gives 

 the result of the work of the Rio Grande Works for this season. 



I should be pleased to give a summary of this report but it 

 would make this paper too long and I must content myself with 

 making a few references to its contents. On page 4 they say that 

 89 per cent of the total sugar in the cane was obtained by diffu- 

 sion and only 48 per cent of the sugar in the cane was secured by 

 milling. Mill products must therefore be increased by 84 per 

 cent to equal diffusion products. The following is a descrij)tion 

 of the process of preparing the cane for the diffusors: ''The 

 bundles of sorghum, each weighing about three hundred pounds, 

 are raised, by steam power, to a platform, upon which they are 

 opened." 



From this platform the cane is arranged in a bed five feet 

 wide, and is conveyed by carriers, butt end forward, to a heavy 

 revolving knife. The feed is so regulated that at each revolution 

 this knife cuts off four inches of the cane bed until the seed tops 

 are reached. By a very ingenious arrangement these seed tops 

 escape the knife by dropping through a trap door which is 

 turned by hand at the proper moment. This separation of the 

 seed tops from the unstrif)ped cane has been found to be thor- 

 oughly satisfactory. The four-inch sections of cane, mixed with 

 leaves but practically free from seed, are elevated to a fan which 

 blows away much of the leaf, and, under favorable conditions, 

 wastes very little or none of the stalk. Two small knives, each 

 revolving nearly 2,000 times per minute, next shave these 

 cleaned sections into chips, and the cane is ready for diffusion. 



I should be pleased to give a description of the process of 

 diffusion as practiced at these works, but it does not differ from 

 any other very much and would not prove especially interesting. 



This process of preparing the cane for the diffasors reduces 

 the weight of the unstrii3ped and untopped cane twenty -one per 

 cent, leaving 1,576 pounds of clean cane. It is suggested that 

 the cane should be cut into two-inch lengths before going to the 

 fan and that two fans should be employed instead of one to make 

 the clearing of the cane of leaves perfect, and it is especially de 

 sirable as the leaves contain a large amount of solids that pre- 

 vent crystallization of the sugar. Small portions of the stripped, 

 toj)ped and shredded cane were picked from the carrier during 

 the time occupied in filling the diffasors. About fifty pounds 

 were secured in this manner, from which a sample was drawn. 



