376 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 
made: this is molasses, of which we make about 5000 to 
7000 tons a year. Of this quantity we distil nearly half, and 
sell a small proportion for other purposes ; but the balance is put 
on the fields as manure, or thrown away. As it contains about 
40 per cent. cane sugar and from 10 to 20 per cent. glucose or 
grape sugar, it is a material of the greatest value for feeding 
stock ; but so far we have not found it possible to make arrange- 
ments for disposing of it in any quantity. In the refineries, also, 
we effect some savings from the by-products by recovering 
sulphate of ammonia from the bones we distil for making the 
filtering charcoal, and the spent charcoal itself is converted into 
superphosphate, the three important components of cane manure— 
ammonia, phosphoric acid, and potash—being, to a certain extent, 
provided by the waste material of our own business. 
Tt could not be expected that changes in our methods, such as 
have been here alluded to, and the general adoption of chemical 
control, could be carried out without some friction. Among 
even the strongest and most intelligent of our officers there was 
at first a hardly-concealed scorn for the new-fangled notions and 
distrust of the chemists’ work; but these have now entirely 
disappeared, and in every direction their reports are, as a rule, 
accepted without question, and with confidence in their fairness 
and accuracy ; and the help of the chemists is sought in many 
ways—here by a manager who wants to check waste in some 
branch of the manufacture, there by an agricultural overseer who 
wishes an analysis of the water he is using for irrigation, or 
advice as to the proportion of manure to apply to a field, or, 
again, by an engineer who asks for an analysis of the coal he 
uses or of the gases from a boiler flue, in order that he may know 
if the setting of the boilers and the arrangement of the fire-bars 
are those most conducive to the economic combustion of coal. 
Having thus briefly sketched our system, I may say a few 
words about the financial results ; and first, as to our expenditure, 
would state that we are now paying to the chemical staff and 
to those officers charged with the control of part of the manu- 
facturing business who possess a knowledge of chemistry, and 
have been chosen for those posts in consequence, some £8000 to 
£9000 a year in the shape of salaries and allowances for board, 
&e. There may be some doubt how we can be repaid for such 
expenditure, but any doubts on this point I do not in the 
remotest degree share. It would be almost impossible, even if it 
were necessary, for me to state exactly what is the value of the 
savings we have to set against such an expenditure ; but among 
those in whose hands the general control of our business is placed 
there is not a second opinion as to the money advantage of the 
chemical check ; and when J say that saving 10lbs. or 12lbs. of 
sugar from each ton of cane—say 5 per cent. of the weight of the 
cane—means to us £15,000 to £20,000 a year, and that an 
