7G 



across the bottoms under the canes and hitched at the side. The canes 

 are then hoisted by an electric winch attached to a traveling crane sus- 

 pended over the wagon. While it is thus suspended, the weight of each 

 half carload is recorded automatically on a ticket inserted into a slot in 

 the weighing machine. The crane is then run over a hopper, and dis- 

 charged by means of a lever which liberates the hitches in the chains. 

 Along one side of the hopper an elevator, having curved iron rods on it, 

 takes the canes to the crusher before the mill. There are four of these 

 mills, and for the purpose of keeping an accurate account of their work, 

 extraction, etc., they are designated A, B, C, and D. A is a Fulton 

 Ironworks Cora, 78-inch by 34-inch twelve-roller mill, with crusher. 

 B is a 72-inch by 37-inch six-roller mill, with crusher; it is only used 

 when more canes are received than the three other mills can crush. 

 C is an 84-inch by 34-inch twelve-roller mill, with crusher; and D is a 

 duplicate of A, that is, a Fulton Ironworks Cora, 78-inch by 34-inch 

 twelve-roller mill, with crusher. All the mills have hydraulic pressure, 

 acting on the top rollers. Water is used for maceration before the feed 

 rollers of the second, third, and fourth mills, and amounts, on the 

 average, to 20 per cent of the weight of the juice. 



The extraction of the juice in the canes, under these conditions, 

 when the six-roller mill was not in use, was from 84 to 86 per cent of 

 the weight of the canes. The mixed juice from the mills passes through 

 what is called a double-decked strainer. Along the surface of each 

 strainer a scraper elevator runs, removing the particles of fine megass, 

 etc., and dumping them on the megass between the second and third 

 mills. From the end of the strainer the juice is sent by a bucket elevator 

 to eight weighing tanks, which are six feet in diameter and contain, 

 on the average, about 4,000 pounds of juice. In order that an accurate 

 check may be kept on the results of the crushing of the mills, the tanks 

 are filled with water and weighed daily, so as to ascertain that the 

 scales are recording correctly. The cane scales are also checked every day 

 by means of an unused mill roller of known- weight, which is kept on a 

 truck, so that it may be run beneath each scale and weighed. Analyses 

 are heing made continually, and every morning the head of each depart- 

 ment makes a return to the general manager of the result of the previous 

 twenty-four hours' working, so that at the beginning of each day that 

 officer has in his possession the weight of the canes, the weight of the 

 juice and the average analyses of the juice and megass made every four 

 hours for the past twenty-four hours; he can therefore see at a glance 

 whether the mills are extracting the highest possible quantity of juice 

 from the canes, and is in possession of other useful information neces- 

 sary to the provision of complete control. 



Toward the end of the last reaping season, as an experiment, the 

 megass from one of the twelve-roller mills was macerated and passed 



