CH. II] SUGAR 57 



that the crop must be a very exhausting one, and indeed rota- 

 tion of crops is commonly practised with sugar. 



In many countries the canes are not replanted after every 

 crop, but the stumps, or rattoons, as they are called, are allowed 

 to grow up again for two or more years. 



Once in the factory the sugar cane goes through a variety 

 of processes. It is first passed through large and heavy rollers, 

 which crush out the juice. As a rule it goes successively 

 through two or three sets of such rollers. The refuse cane, 

 known as megass, is commonly used as fuel for the engines in 

 the factory, and is carried to them by elevators. The juice is 

 next clarified by being mixed with unslaked lime, and heating, 

 when the acids are neutralised, and the twigs and other debris 

 contained in the juice rise to the top and are skimmed off. 

 It is then concentrated by heating in several successive boilers, 

 usually under lower and lower pressure, and finally the thick 

 pasty mass is poured out to stiffen into sugar and then 

 arranged in such a way as to allow the uncrystallisable 

 " molasses " to drain off. It would lead beyond the scope of this 

 work to describe the processes in detail. The work requires, 

 and in every modern factory receives, the attention of a skilled 

 chemist one reason among many why the small factory cannot 

 hope to succeed against the big one. 



Some of the sugar factories in Cuba, Hawaii, and the 

 Malayan region are upon a colossal scale, the machinery in them 

 representing large capital expenditure. Big machinery crushes, 

 boils, crystallises, and does the other work of the factory much 

 more economically than small, and obtains a greater percentage 

 of sugar from a given kind of cane. 



Until comparatively recently, even in the most advanced 

 countries, the cultivation of the cane was more or less casual, 

 attention being rather devoted to the improvement of the 

 machinery to deal with it ; and it remains in this condition in 

 India and elsewhere. Now, however, stimulated by the 

 example of beet sugar, in which wonderful improvements have 

 been introduced by careful selection of the tubers, and in other 

 ways, careful and well-organised attempts are being made in 

 Java, the West Indies, and elsewhere, to improve the yield of 



