: ' ,° REPORT OF THE CHEMIST. 229 
OUTLINE OF THE PROCESSES OF SUGAR-MAKING. 
As now developed, the processes of making sugar from sorghum 
are as follows: 
(1) The topped cane is delivered at the factory by the farmers who 
grow it. 
(2) The cane is cut by a machine into pieces about 14 inches long. 
(3) The leaves and sheaths are separated from the cut cane by fan- 
ning mills. 
(4) The cleaned cane is cut into fine bits called chips. 
(5) The chips are placed in iron tanks, and the sugar ‘‘ diffused ”— 
soaked out with hot water. 
(6) The juice obtained by diffusion has its acids nearly or quite 
Be tilized with milk of lime, and is heated and skimmed. 
(7) The defecated or clarified juice is boiled to a semi-sirup in 
vacuum pans. 
(8) The semi-sirup is boiled ‘‘to grain” in a high vacuum in the 
strike-pan. 
(9) The mixture of sugar and molasses from the strike-pan is 
passed through a mixing machine into centrifugal machines, which 
throw out the molasses and and retain the sugar. 
DETAILS OF THE PROCESSES OF SUGAR-MAKING. 
An account of the processes of sugar-making ought, doubtless, to 
begin with the planting and cultivation, growth, and ripening of the 
cane, for it is here that the sugar is made. No known processes of 
science or art, save those of plant growth, produce the peculiar com- 
bination of carbon with the elements of water which we call sugar. 
Not only is this true, but the chemist utterly fails in every attempt 
to so modify existing similar combinations of these elements as to 
_ produce cane sugar. It will be interesting here to note three sub- 
stances of nearly the same composition, viz, starch, sucrose or cane 
sugar, and glucose or grape sugar. Their compositions are much 
alike, and may be stated as follows: 
Carbon. | Water. 
| Btamoire:: ene eS 12 | 10 | 
| Cane sugar... 2.05.25 5.2% 12 11 
Grape sugar’. .3:5.7)5.. 12 | 12 
* The chemical formulas for these compounds are: Starch, C;H,,O;; cane sugar, Cy.H.20,1; grape 
sugar, CyH,.0,; in which C represents an equivalent of carbon, H of hydrogen, and O of oxygen, or 
H,0 an equivalent of water. 
The chemist produces glucose, or grape sugar, from cither starch 
or sugar by treatment with acid, but all attempts have failed to pro- 
duce cane sugar from either starch or grape sugar. 
THE FARMER THE REAL SUGAR-MAKER. 
Vhe farmer, then, or perhaps more accurately the power which im- 
pels the plant to select and combine in proper form and proportions 
the three elements, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, is the real sugar- 
maker. All after processes are merely devices for separating the 
sugar from the other substances with which it grows. 
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