10 



Besides this manual labor the whole ten baskets had fco be raised every time one 

 was filled or emptied. A large hydraulic puujp is used for this work and of itself 

 requires more power than is necessary to run a battery of closed cells. This extra 

 power and labor would not necessarily condemn the apparatus if such superior results 

 were obtained as to overcome the expense. But instead of this, exactly the reverse 

 was accomplished. Not much better extraction was secured than is obtained by 

 the ordinary cane-mill of Louisiana, and this only with a dilution of nearly 50 per 

 cent., causing an extra expense of no small amount for evaporation. Then, also, the 

 quality of the juice obtained was extremely poor. The almost constant exposure 

 to the air and especially in iron vessels blackened it to such a degree that no good 

 sugars could be made from it. Clarification was nearly impossible with any of the 

 ordinary re-agents in the sugar-house. This was extremely unfortunate in Kansas, aa 

 the greatest profits are made 011 material sold to the home market. 



Full reports of the chemical work at Rio Grande are contained in 

 Bulletin 51, Kew Jersey Experiment Station. 



EXPERIMENTS AT KENNER, LA. 



As has been mentioned before, Prof. W. C. Stubbs was placed in 

 charge of the experiments which were arranged for in connection with 

 the Louisiana sugar-experiment station at Kenner and the stations at 

 Baton Rouge and Calhoun. For two previous seasons Professor Stubbs 

 had made extensive experiments with sorghum, which are fully reported 

 in the bulletins of the Louisiana experiment station and in Bulletin No. 

 18 of this division. A study of the analytical data of the three years' 

 work in Louisiana shows in an emphatic way the peculiarities of sorghum 

 which have rendered so difficult the successful inauguration of sugar- 

 making from that plant. The great variations in the content of sucrose 

 in the juices of the plant, its susceptibility to injury by storms and other 

 unforeseen causes, are strikingly set forth in the analytical figures which 

 follow. In my opinion the production of a variety of sorghum-cane 

 suitable to the soil and climate of the sugar lands of Louisiana will be 

 a work of no small difficulty. From the results of the work already 

 done, and especially during the last year, an account of which is con- 

 tained in the appended report of Professor Stubbs, it is clearly seen 

 that a season which has produced a sugar cane very rich in sucrose in 

 the State of Louisiana has produced a sorghum crop which is absolutely 

 worthless for sugar-making for commercial purposes. Another point 

 illustrated by the report is brought out, in the reference to the past work 

 of the station, in which, although a cane was produced whose juice was 

 reasonably rich in sucrose, its practical working in the sugar factory was 

 found most difficult. In the report this is ascribed to the presence of 

 large quantities of dextrine or dextrine-like bodies supposed to be de- 

 rived from the starch originally present in the juice. It is the opinion 

 of Professor Stubbs that starch and sucrose are developed in the sor- 

 ghum paripassu. In this case it would be found that the direct polari- 

 zation of a sorghum juice rich in sugar would show apparently a much 

 higher content of sucrose than was actually present, since dextrine and 



