976 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
and locate any unforeseen mechanical difficulties incident to contin- — 
uous work. Numerous such arose, of course, each happily, however, 
suggesting at once its own certain remedy. If, technically, this large | 
effort was not as satisfactory as might have been anticipated from 
the painstaking arrangements made for and well-organized and pre- 
cise management accorded it, it was yet successful beyond all ex- 
pectation in solving those yroblems which must ever attach in cane- 
juice work to the application in filter presses on a considerable man- 
ufacturing basis of any matrix whatever. It removed ata stroke 
all necessity for the yet more extensive operations which, as you 
know, had previously been proposed. 
It is needless here to weary you with the details of this day’s run, 
which, with its antecedents rather than with its consequents, demon- 
strated conclusively, as is believed, that while the filtration of the 
entire body of defecated juice thus, with brown coal, stands well 
among the mechanical possibilities, its application can by no means 
now conceived with us be rendered remunerative to the Louisiana in- 
dustry. This your discernment willalready have made quiteas clear to 
you by what precedes as it can by any present comparison between the 
weights and polarizations of its resulting products and those custom- 
ary to the establishment in its treatment of like raw materials. Such 
data, indeed, await your command, but indicate to me no variation 
in rendement beyond that attributable tothe accidents and incidents 
common with every-day factory experience. There occurred nothing 
of the oft and persistently predicted clogging, either of pumps, con- 
duits, presses, or cloths. The cloths at the end of twenty-four hours 
showed no loss of transmitting power, and were washed with sur- 
prising ease. 
In quality of products, no doubt, some advantage was recognized 
to accrue, bone-coal not being employed in the factory. Notwith- 
standing, in this particular also disappointment was felt. In no 
other respect than this, surely, did the results of this experiment 
compare even favorably with those secured by Mr. G. L. Spencer, in 
1886, with the Remmers and Williamson wood-char process, under 
the patronage of your Department at its Magnolia Station, as these 
stand officially reported in your Bulletin No. 15 (pp. 20-25, inclusive). 
So much more efiective has vegetable char than brown coal been 
shown also in our own work, both as a filtering and as a defecating 
agent, that, having abandoned the latter altogether, experimentation 
since several weeks with the former, in a laboratory way, with seed- 
cane, has now been in seemingly successful progress here. The fol- 
lowing is not an unfair comparison, so far as experience yet teaches, 
between the two articles applied to juices somewhat deteriorated by 
long storage of canes: 
| | 
| Matrix required | Improvement stats 
| on weight of | of purity co-effi- Decolonization 
sucrose. cient. PI SPARSE, 
Per cent. Per cent. 
IBrOWNICOBL cede 30 to 45 0.30 to 1.90 60 to 80 
Wioeod charac. c rescues 6 to 12 1.50 to 4.30 6 to 12 
Lignite presents other disadvantages, as well, in comparison with 
wood charcoal. Upon concentration to sirup, juice filtered with 
whatever percentage of it, whether reduced with the low tempera- 
