SUGAR. 



417 



The illustrations of sugar-manufacturing implements which we insert were made from 

 photographs of those made by the Blymyer Manufacturing Co., of Cincinnati, Ohio, and are 

 good representations of this class of machines. 



Extracting the Juice. The preparation for the mill consists in cutting off the tops 

 of the stalks, and removing the leaves. It is always best to have the juice of the cane 

 expressed from the stalks as soon as possible after harvesting it, as it has been found that a 

 change commences at the base of the stalk very soon after cutting, and gradually progresses 

 upward. The juice freshly-expressed from the cane should not remain in contact with the 

 air for more than an hour; even twenty minutes will sometimes be sufficient to produce a 

 change. In crushing the cane, care should be used not to have the mills work at too high a 

 rate of speed. A high authority on this subject says, that very good results may be obtained 

 by the use of rollers which develop a surface of four or five yards in length per minute, so 

 that a roller of two feet in diameter should only make from two to two and a half revolu 

 tions per minute, in order to extract generally the largest amount of juice from a given 

 weight of cane, an increase in the capacity of the mill being obtained by increasing the 

 length of the rollers, rather than the velocity. It is estimated that the fresh cane contains 



COOK S SUGAR EVAPORATOR. FURNACE AND PAN. 



from eighty-two to eighty -five per cent of its weight of saccharine juice. Most of the ordinary 

 mills extract from fifty to sixty per cent, of the weight of the stalk, hence there is the loss of 

 about forty-one per cent, of the juice where only fifty per cent, of the weight is extracted. 

 It will sometimes repay the labor of expressing the crushed cane, by the increased yield of 

 the juice thus obtained. 



Defecation or Clarification of the Juice. Owing to albumen and other nitro 

 genous substances contained in the juice of the cane, the process of fermentation soon com 

 mences if it is left exposed to the air after being expressed from the stalks. The mill should 

 be placed upon an elevation in such a manner that the juice, as it is received from it by the 

 pipe that conducts it into the defecating tank, may pass from thence into the evaporator. A 

 strainer of wire gauze, or coarse cloth, is placed at the outlet of the receiving-tank, to separate 

 the juice from any fragments of cane, etc., that it may contain. As it leaves the mill, it is 

 of a yellowish-green color, opaque, and frothy. 



The more quickly this juice of the cane can be converted into sugar, after being 

 expressed from the stalks, the better the result. As soon, therefore, as it comes from the 

 mill, it must be freed from all impurities. The quality of the sugar will depend largely upon 



