CANE JUICE 27 



lower rollers revolve in the same, the upper one in the 

 opposite direction. A travelling band or " carrier " 

 conveys the canes to the mouth of the mill, care being 

 taken that they are so evenly distributed as to form a 

 constant and uniform feed. The canes enter between 

 the front roller and the upper one, only just space enough 

 being left between the two rollers to permit them to 

 catch hold of the canes, and draw them through. Be- 

 tween the two lower rollers, just below the centre of 

 the circumference of the upper roller, is a metal plate 

 which causes the crushed cane to turn towards the 

 space between the back roller and the upper one, where 

 it is again drawn in and crushed a second time. These 

 rollers are placed much closer together, because the 

 already partially crushed cane can now be forced through 

 a narrower entrance. This double crushing may, if 

 well done in a sufficiently powerful mill, extract sixty 

 per cent, of the juice in the cane. This had to be 

 improved upon if cane was to compete with beetroot. 

 The arrangement now is a combination of three of 

 these three-roller mills set tandem fashion, with carriers 

 to convey the crushed cane from the first to the second 

 and from the second to the third. It might be imagined 

 that when the crushed cane, called megass or, in 

 French, bagasse issues from the third mill it has lost 

 all its juice. Unfortunately, this is not so, and therefore 

 other expedients have been adopted to still further 

 reduce the quantity of sugar left in the megass. The 

 rollers in the second and third mill are placed closer 

 together in order more completely to squeeze the now 

 attenuated strips of crushed cane. Those mills are 

 also driven at a slightly slower speed. But important 

 additions have of late years been made. It was found 

 that the first of the two crushings in the front mill did 

 not do much more than break the outside rind of the 



