OTHER FARM CROPS 669 



a pan, tub, or crock under each barrel for catching the molasses as 

 it runs off. Time alone will now complete the process, the purging 

 going on by gravity without human assistance. It is complete when 

 the molasses nas so drained off as to leave the sugar reasonably dry 

 and free from all sticky tendency. 



If the process is successful such sugar will be of a light brown 

 or yellowish color, and thoroughly adapted to most domestic uses, and 

 will find ready sale for local consumption, or for refining. 



Whitening the Sugar. The demand of the market and perhaps, 

 unfortunately, of most consumers is for sugar entirely free from all 

 natural cane flavor or taste and perfectly white in color in other 

 words, the "granulated" form of commerce. This product, how- 

 ever, is the result of the refining process involving the use of com- 

 plicated machinery and great capital. There are, however, simpler 

 means by which, on a small scale with a moderate expense, the sugar 

 may be so materially whitened as to approach the character of gran- 

 ulated sugar and find more ready sale. The simplest of these 

 methods is one based on a modification of an old process used in the 

 days when loaf sugar was a standard article of commerce. It con- 

 sists simply in removing the sugar from the purging barrel and 

 placing it in a tub or half-barrel with an outlet at the bottom. The 

 sugar is then covered by a single thickness of common cheese cloth, 

 on top of which is placed a water bucketful of moist clay stirred to 

 a thick paste. The result will be that the sugar will absorb the mois- 

 ture from the clay and become washed thereby ; in a few days' time 

 the sugar will have become so materially whitened as to better meet 

 the popular demands, indeed, will approach in character and appear- 

 ance the very best product of commercial sugar below the grade of 

 "granulated." 



A modification of this method may be advantageously used, 

 based on the practice in many sugar refineries and in all laundries, 

 viz.: Blue is optically complementary to yellow and, consequently 

 where blue and yellow are brought together in opposition, the neutral 

 or white optical effect follows. Consequently, the laundress uses 

 bluing with yellow clothing to make it appear white, and the sugar 

 refiner uses ultra marine upon his yellow sugar whereby it appears 

 white. Ultra marine is wholly harmless and inexpensive, and can be 

 secured of most druggists. If the water, therefore, that is used for 

 mixing with the clay is very slightly blued by the introduction of a 

 little powdered ultramarine the effect is an apparently white sugar 

 really no purer or whiter than the yellow article, but which meets 

 the public demand and sells for a better price. 



Returns from Sirup and Sugar. The final value of any crop 

 must rest upon its commercial returns, whether the same is actually 

 placed upon the market or is used for home consumption, since in 

 the latter case, expenditure is prevented and "a penny saved is a 

 penny earned." In the particular case of sugar cane, however, it has 

 Deen, as already expressed, the desire to show that the growing of 

 cane for the manufacture of sugar offered a remunerative crop and 

 therefore a most valuable substitute iu regular farm practice for 



