PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. By arg 
improvement in the colour of our refined sugar, which will bring 
us a few shillings per ton more for it, represents a similar sum, 
some:idea can be gained of the ground on which the chemical 
staff has to work and of the savings they can effect ; and I can 
add that some of the losses in our manufacturing business have 
by their aid been reduced by one-third during the past four 
years, and the extent of this saving can be guessed by the fact that 
in one year the entire losses of sugar at our mills amounted to 
14,000 tons, z.e., the cane we crushed contained 14,000 tons more 
sugar than we were able to turn into marketable sugar. From 
the sum of such loss it is easy to see that there are yet great 
possibilities in the manufacture of sugar from the cane, and in 
the cultivation of this crop much can still be done by manuring 
and thorough culture, even if the sweetness of the cane be not 
increased, as before suggested. We know now that on one 
plantation in Java the entire crop of cane has contained in one 
year as much as 8 tons of sugar to the acre, the cane being about 
twelve months old; and when we bear in mind that the weight 
of an unusual crop of maize (80 bushels) is two tons, and that a 
40-bushel crop of wheat gives a total yield of one ton of grain 
and two tons of straw, some idea will be gained of the effect of 
tropical rain and sunshine in forming sugar in the cane when 
the circumstances are favourable and the cultivation and manuring 
are carefully done under skilled supervision. Jt will be seen, 
moreover, that sugar-cane occupies an exceptional position among 
other crops in the weight of marketable produce which can be 
extracted from it. 
And to the money benefits obtained by the chemical check we 
must add two more, both of considerable importance. The first 
is the great advantage of having in a large service like ours a 
body of men of various ages trained in the knowledge that their 
work is useless unless it is carried out with patient thoroughness, 
accompanied by uncompromising truth-telling. No chemist worth 
his salt dreams of concealing anything wrong or twisting his 
conclusions so as to hide defects in the work of himself and 
others, and it is surely of great value to have an example of this 
sort always before the younger as well as the older men. To 
those who fear to confess a mistake the certainty of its exposure 
acts as a useful tonic, while to all, from the top to the bottom 
of the staff, the example is wholesome. The second is the 
mental refreshment and the increased interest in the work due 
to the constant discussion of recorded facts and opinions, and of 
the experiments of the chemists. Speaking for myself, I can say 
that I have frequently found that energy flagging from the 
pressure of routine and other monotonous work has again been 
roused by interesting reports of experiments or suggestions as to 
changes in our methods ; and in the case of others, the constant 
competition between the officers, the chances offered in the 
