83 



The boilers in use with these mills are generally of a good type iD:ut 

 of a capacity suitable for generating only sufficient steam for the mill 

 engine. Any additional requirements would necessitate providing ad- 

 ditional boiler capacity. A good boiler need not be discarded but can 

 be satisfactorily used in the power plant in connection with other 

 boilers, preferably of the same type, size and pressure. 



The increase should be sufficient so that the entire boiler capacity 

 will provide the necessary power to drive all of the machinery operated 

 in the mill and supply sufficient exliaust and live steam for doing all of 

 the evaporating. This would necessitate the reconstruction of the boiler 

 settings so as to provide green bagasse furnace for burning vegetable 

 matter carrying from 45 to 55 per cent of moisture, and the installation 

 of the necessary bagasse carriers for feeding the refuse from the mill 

 directly into the Dutch oven furnace which should be fitted with step- 

 ladder grate, the same as the large central mills. This arrangement 

 would dispense with all labor now required for handling the cane into 

 the mill, the movement of bagasse to the yard, handling while it is 

 being dried, and returning it to the furnace-room, and make the operation 

 of the mill possible even during the heaviest rains when the drying of 

 bagasse is impossible. ^ 



The only type of evaporating plant in use consists of a series of cast- 

 iron caldrons, or cauas, set in a furnace, the simplest form of which 

 is illustrated in the accompanying cut made from a drawing. There are 

 a few pieces of auxiliary machinery and equipment to be found in sugar 

 mills of the Islands. Occasionally a juice pump is attached to a crank 

 arranged on one of the mill rollers or engine, but the writer has never 

 seen a separately operated steam geared or belted pump in a Philippine 

 sugar mill. Settling tanks are generally used in the larger mills but 

 without any definite plan for their operation. There is often found 

 some form of filter press, the simplest iy^Q of which is the one consisting 

 essentially of a wooden box with a weighted follow-block. The bags of 

 scum or settlings are placed inside of the box and pressure applied by 

 direct weighing. Occasionally a small standard filter press is to be seen 

 and sometimes they are so operated as to do good work. Clarification is 

 accomplished principally by skimming the juice during the process of 

 evaporation. There are a very few steam-heated clarifiers and one open 

 steam evaporating pan in use in Negros. Several mills have from time 

 to time purchased centrifugals under the impression that this class of 

 machinery could be operated on concrete sugar as made in the Philip- 

 pines. These purchases were generally made on the recommendation of 

 machinery dealers rather than from a knowledge of their use and opera- 

 tion in the sugar industry. Of course, they have been a general failure 

 and in some cases the purchasers have become thoroughly convinced that 

 centrifugal machines are of no value in the Philippines. 



Cane carriers are highly desirable, even where mills have a capacity 



