398 SORGHUM. 



on account of our boiler capacity not being what it ought to be. It was little 

 trouble to get steam enough with good, dry bagasse. When we first commenced 

 we ran with bagasse for fuel, and then we used coal. With the very best firemen 

 we could get, we had 100 to 150 gallons less a day with coal. Bagasse, in 

 that connection, was worth twenty dollars a day to us, over and above what 

 coal would have come to — taking into consideration the decrease in syrup 

 made. 



Mr. Clements (in answer to an inquirj'). — It would be impossible to keep the 

 necessary fire in a furnace 28 feet long with coal. Where you can have dr^' ba- 

 gasse, it is better fuel than you can get from any thing else. 



Mr. Stout. — We use bagasse pretty much as Mr. Clements does. We 

 use two fire trains. I have two pans, 83 feet long, with chimneys about 

 30 feet high. The grates are 4 feet long and 3 feet wide, and probably 

 2 feet from the pans. We made, on an average, this season, 325 gal- 

 lons of syrup a daj'. I am satisfied it would take three cords of wood to 

 have done that much evaporation — probably a little more. We didn't use 

 wood — except about half a cord the day we started up, and at one time when 

 every thing got wet. We came early to the conclusion, after burning bagasse, 

 that, if we could not get that or straw, we would actuall}' shut down. The fur- 

 nace we arranged for bagasse is so we could not run with coal or wood; it might 

 do with wood split up very fine. I have noticed frequently, in burning bagasse, 

 the blaze came out at the top of the chimneys 30 feet high, and trains, one 28 

 feet and the other 33 feet long. You have to have the ash pit three or four 

 times as deep (three or four feet), and you have to take it out once a day, when 

 running. If we let it fill up, it will melt the grate in a few hours — if we let the 

 cinders pile up too close to the grate. In this season, the onlj^ thing we used 

 was bagasse (except wood, a few hours), and when there came a heavy rain for 

 a day or two. we burned a rick of probably twenty tons of dry straw. We paid 

 a dollar a ton for the straw. A ton of straw, that cost us onlj^ a dollar, was 

 worth more than a coid of wood. 



A Member. — How did you prevent burning every thing up with the draft; 

 Wouldn't it rain fire all over your premises? 



Mr. Stout. — That height of a chimney wouldn't. Several gentlemen have 

 asked whether they could run a small furnace — a small train — with bagasse. 

 We did that, last season, under a Cook pan, 12 feet long, and a chimney 12 or 

 IP feet high. Out of that chimney it set the bagasse, in the bagasse j'ard, on 

 fire half a dozen times. That was really dangerous; but with 30-foot flues, this 

 season, the cinders came out — but it is so high before they light, I think they 

 go out. They are very dangerous in small works, with chimneys only 10 or 15 • 

 feet high. 



A Member. — My chimney was 30 feet high, and my building was set on fire. 



A Member. — Can you burn bagasse that j'ou grind this morning, the same 

 day ? 



Mr. Stout. — If it is a dry day, we can burn bagasse after two o'clock. You 

 can burn it all that evening and all that night; bagasse that we scatter in the 

 morning. 



A Member. — Can you keep it a year, and then burn it ? 



Mr. Stout. — Yes. 



A Member. — Suppose you had all wood, would you use bagasse then ? 



