Cuban Cane Sugar 



In the case of beet sugar, the 

 process is more difficult and expen- 

 sive. First the beets must be thor- 

 oughly washed to cleanse them of 

 the quantities of field earth which 

 adhere to them. In the early days 

 of the beet sugar industry it was the 

 custom after washing to pulp the 

 beets and effect the extraction of the 

 juice by pressing, much as cane is 

 pressed. But this method is so 

 wasteful and so inefficient, because 

 of the structure of the beet, that it 

 has been abandoned and a diffusion 

 process substituted. 



The first operation in the diffusion 

 process is to slice the beets into the 

 thinnest possible individual pieces. 

 This is done by a machine which 

 cuts the beets with a multitude of 

 curved knife blades, revolving rap- 

 idly. When the beets are cut into 

 thin, irregular slices on this machine, 

 they are placed, in water, in the first 

 [24] 



