INDIANA CANE GROWERS. 479 



patent-right man — has not made ours an exception. After much experimenting, 

 the conclusion ia that there is nothing better than lime. It is cheap, well known, 

 widely distributed, can be safely handled, easily applied, coagulates the vegetable 

 matter more readily and completely than, any other alkali. But, best of all, it 

 unites with the acid and forms an insoluble product, which unites and is taken off 

 with the scum, hence has no efiect on the sugar or syrup. For instance, soda will 

 neutralize the acid as readily as lime, but the product is soluble, and, remaining 

 in the syrup, will give it a deleterious flavor, if much acid has been neutralized. 

 For these and other reasons not necessary to state, lime has come into general 

 favor. 



I am well aware that many fear lime as they do countei'feit money, and for the 

 same reason it makes a hole in the profits. There are two reasons for this: First, 

 they use it improperly ; second, they use it without a bleacher. To use it just 

 right is as delicate a trick as walking a rope, where the least deviation from grav- 

 ity's center will throw us on this side or that, and end in disaster. Too much lime 

 is " this side;" too little, "that." When you have tried lime as long and patiently 

 as the gymnast has the z-ope, you may proceed with as much confidence as he. If 

 lime is used in excess, it will combine with glucose, and the syrup will not only be 

 dark, but bitter. On the other hand, you meet with the "sorghum taste." You 

 should neutralize so closely that if you were to put in a piece of blue and red lit- 

 mus, side by side, neither would change color. But if you are working for syrup, 

 and have not a good bleacher which you can use intelligently and in suflScient 

 quantity, I would advise that you stay on the safe side — do not neutralize all the 

 acid. But if you are working for sugar, the safe side is the alkaline; for if the 

 least purple is found on the litmus, it means you are losing five to ten per cent, of 

 sugar by inversion. Yet if you use lime in excess, the excess will unite with the 

 sucrcsf, and thus, in trying to dodge Scylla, we fall into Oharybdis ; but the danger 

 is not so great on this side, as will be explained further on. 



The main objection to lime is that it darkens the syrup. If you do not intend 

 to use a bleacher to counteract this effect, I advise that you let lime alone and 

 make good, old-fashioned sorghum syrup, and brand each barrel in large letters, 

 "Sorghum ;" for no one can be deceived in the article. But if you will use a good 

 bleacher in connection with lime, you may mark it " West India Extra Eureka 

 Brand, XXXX," and it will outsell "sorghum" every time. 



As a bleacher many things have been used, such as phosphate of ammonia, 

 phosphoric acid, carbonic acid, sulphur fumes, sulphurous acid, bisulphate of lime. 

 The last three have sulphur ,a8 a basis. The only valid objection, known to 

 me, against sulphur bleachers (if I may be allowed to so call them) is that they 

 are not permanent. Bleach a rose in sulphur fumes and its primitive color may 

 return; bleach it in phosphoric acid and it will be permanently bleached. I 

 have frequently noticed that my old syrup was much darker than Avhen first 

 made. These bleachers will not lighten the syrup, unless used in excess, and are 

 present as free sulphurous acid. This free acid will, in time, partly or altogether 

 depart, and the syrup becomes dark. If the vessels containing the syrup are kept 

 air-tight, this will not happen. And as this is the way they are usually kept, it 

 weakens the force of the objection. 



