SUGAR FROM SORGHUM 225 



six, a month after cutting, which might be partly due to the 

 concentration by evaporation. 



No statement is made as to how the canes were preserved 

 so long, but they were probably placed underground. 



Experiments at the station in Washington 1 were conducted 

 by the chemist in charge, to preserve cane in the same man- 

 ner as beets are kept. The sorghum canes were placed in a 

 shallow ditch, and covered with earth. In January, when the 

 ground was frozen, the silo was opened, the cane, from analysis, 

 yielding 8.39 per cent, sucrose. The next analysis of the cane 

 was made after the winter was practically over. There was 

 a small loss of sucrose, and the yield showed 7 per cent. 

 Sorghum is preserved in silos in Japan. 2 



The crude juice of the sugar beet is a very unpromising 

 product, but the processes are so perfected that nearly all 

 the juice is worked up into crystallizable sugar. Mr. Hilgard 

 states that "the juice of the sugar beet is in the same cases 

 the least pure of sugar-producing plants. To obtain pure 

 sugars from such a raw material requires the confidence of a 

 chemist in the resources of his science, and the solution of the 

 problem stands as one of the most striking instances of the 

 utility of apparently recondite research in developing latent 

 resources for industrial uses." 3 



The cells of the sorghum cane are grouped together like 

 a honeycomb. The sugar, which is held in a state of solution, 

 is contained within the cellular tissue. Dr. Wiley states, 4 

 "The idea that sugar exists in the cane in a crystalline form 

 is contrary to all rules of chemical physics and accurate 

 observation." 



A process of extracting the sugar from sugar-producing plants 

 is based upon taking advantage of the natural condition of 

 things as they exist in the plants, and the application of the 

 theory of osmose. 



This process, known as diffusion, is the "spontaneous mixing 



1 Bui. No. 3, p. 78, by H. W. Wiley. 



2 From a Report of Consul-General Van Buren. 



8 The Beet Sugar Industry in California, by E. W. Hilgard, Dec. 1886. 

 4 Bui. No. 2, Chem. Div. Dept. of Agr., p. 5. 



