Ill 



82°, agrees fairly closely with that just deduced from the records of sugar 

 bought in Iloilo, 83°.6. 



Examination of this table shows that there is much room for improve- 

 ment in the manufacture of sugar as now carried on, even with the open- 

 kettle process. Reduced to its simplest terms, this process consists merely 

 in removing the water from a solution containing a certain percentage of 

 sucrose, reducing sugars, salts, and organic matter not sugar, which, 

 if evaporated to complete dryness under ideal conditions, would yield 

 a product having the same polarization as the "quotient of purity" of the 

 original juice. Clarification with lime, coupled with the increase shown 

 by "true" over "apparent" purity, would still further raise the final 

 polarization, so that it is theoretically possible to produce a concrete 

 having a polarization a few degrees higher than the original purity 

 of the juice. In the best practice this would be reduced from 2° 

 to 5° by the hydration water necessarily retained by the reducing 

 sugars and salts present, so that perfect sugar boiling, where no molasses 

 is removed, might be considered to be the production of a concrete having 

 the same polarization as the original "apparent" purity of the juice. 



This limit is in rare cases rather closely approached, the two mill tests pre- 

 viously quoted, which represent very fair work, falling below it by 3° or 4°, 

 Avhile in the average of all the samples examined the polarization of the sugar 

 made is 5° less than the original purity of the juice. Number 8 indicates the 

 extent to which the quality of sugar produced may be influenced by care in 

 manufacture; in this case a juice of 92.3 purity was yielding sugar which 

 polarized only 84.7, the native sugar boiler in charge laying the blame on the 

 canes ground, which, he said, were of inferior quality. The manager of the estate, 

 acting on a suggestion to try a change of sugar boilers, brought over an expe- 

 rienced "maestro" from another estate, with the result that, from juice of identi- 

 cally the same quality, sugar polarizing 90.3 was produced. This gave a net gain 

 of 50 centavos per picul in the price realized, or about 50 pesos per day. In 

 each case the juice had been limed until it was practically neutral, the only 

 diff"erence in manipulation being the greater care and skill exercised by the more 

 experienced "maestro" in supervising the final operation of boiling, and in allowing 

 only thoroughly clarified juice to enter the No. 1 "caua." 



It is an astonishing fact that so little attention is paid in Negros 

 to the importance of skill and care in the manufacture of sugar, 

 even by the present crude methods. Many planters, industrious and 

 painstaking to an extreme degi'ee as far as planting and field opera- 

 tions are concerned, appear to consider that once they have succeeded 

 in raising a large crop of good and healthy cane their responsibility 

 has ceased, and the details of manufacturing are turned over to a 

 native contractor at so much a picul, or, if the mill is run by laborers 

 furnished by the hacienda, a foreman may be nominally placed in 

 charge, but the quality of sugar produced depends solely upon tho 



