306 



Maize or Corn-Sugar. 



Vol. VI. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Maize or Corn-Sugar. 



Mr. Editor, — In justice to myself, 1 hope 

 I may be permitted to draw the attention of 

 the readers of the Cabinet to my late articles 

 on the manufacture of corn-sugar, pp. 142, 

 218, and Mr. Webb's reply, p. 195, of the 

 present volume. I there stated, that although 

 much merit was due to Mr. Webb for his 

 prosecution of that very interesting subject to 

 a conviction of the feasibility with which the 

 end might be accomplished, yet, there was no 

 discovery, properly speaking; no new adapta- 

 tion of any known principle of operation de- 

 veloped, either chemically or mechanically, 

 in what has been termed the new process, for 

 which it was said at the time, Mr. Webb had 

 secured a patent. And although Mr. Webb has 

 satisfied every one of the fact that he never 

 had, or even intended to apply for a patent 

 for his process, still, I confess I was not pre- 

 pared to grant him all the credit which some 

 of his friends demanded for him, seeing, as I 

 said, that the thing had long before been done, 

 and on the principle which he had adopted. 

 This feeling was considered by some, and I 

 fear by Mr. Webb himself, uncharitable: how 

 far the charge is just, I need only point to 

 Mr. Webb's lecture on the subject, delivered 

 at Washington, and published by the "Na- 

 tional Agricultural Society," and ask, if in 

 any part of it there is the least pretension to 

 discovery of any sort, or even of improvement 

 in any of the processes, whether of growing 

 the corn or extracting and concentrating its 

 juices; nay, I would add, whether the pro- 

 cesses he details, and those which he cites 

 from a " manual on the subject of cane-sugar 

 prepared some years since," are not known 

 and admitted to be very defective, when com- 

 pared with late improvements — which might 

 well be termed discoveries — in the art of 

 sugar-making; coming properly under the 

 head of refining — " Defecation being," as the 

 author of the manual expresses it, " the great 

 problem of sugar-making;" but of which I 

 confess I do not see anything, in the processes 

 that Mr. Webb describes in his lecture or 

 essay. 



His descriptions relating to the growing of 

 the crop, with the machinery in common use 

 for crushing and pressing the stalks, are plain 

 enough ; so also is the account of the common 

 mode of defecation, filtration, and concentra- 

 tion, by means of the bascule — better known 

 by the term tilt-pan — which is in very gene- 

 ral use where evaporation by steam is not 

 practised ; but there is nothing new in all this; 

 nay, the whole of these processes have been 

 of lato so much improved, in every sense of 

 the word, that what is here detailed, may 



very properly be termed antiquated, without 

 the least disparagement to Mr. Webb or any 

 one concerned in the matter — witness, in par- 

 ticular, the want of all judgment in appor- 

 tioning the necessary quantity of lime in the 

 process of defecation, where Mr. Webb says, 

 "I have never failed in making sugar from 

 employing too much or too little lime; a cer- 

 tain portion of this substance is undoubtedly 

 necessary, and more or less than this will be 

 injurious, but no precise directions can be 

 given about it;" the latitude which he admits 

 being a difference of exactly 100 per cent.: 

 as also the loose mode of judging the proper 

 point of concentration, to insure speedy and 

 perfect granulation ; by which he is brought 

 to the confession, that why so great a length 

 of time is required for the drainage of the 

 sugar from the time of boiling — in no case 

 less than three weeks — he has not yet been 

 able to discover. From Mr. Webb's own 

 showing, then, " the precise point of concen- 

 tration had not been either understood or 

 practised," any more than the principle and 

 practice of defecation. But in all this I by 

 no means wish to detract "an iota" from Mr. 

 Webb's fame ; I most willingly accord to him 

 the portion of merit which is so justly his 

 due; nor should I again have taken up the 

 subject had not his lecture at Washington 

 given ample proof of the want of originality 

 in all that has been claimed as a new mode 

 of fabricating sugar from the corn-stalk. And 

 to show this, I enclose for publication in the 

 Cabinet, extracts from the essay, as published 

 by the "National Agricultural Society;" 

 drawing particular attention to the appended 

 " Extracts from Annales de la Societe Poly- 

 technic Pratique, No. 22, for October, 1839; 

 translated at the patent office, Washington ;" 

 in which is stated the fact, that the precise 

 operation of extracting the ear from the corn 

 for the purpose of furnishing a greater quan- 

 tity of sugar, had already been practised in 

 France, although I had been led to believe 

 that this operation was claimed by Mr. Webb 

 as original ; who, indeed, expressed a degree 

 of mortification on being told that " no doubt 

 he knew such a mode had long been prac- 

 tised on the Palm for the same purpose;" for 

 he says, " I certainly did not know that this 

 plan had been applied to the cocoa or any 

 other tree; and notwithstanding the quota- 

 tion, I am still very far from being convinced 

 of the fact." Now, are we to understand 

 that Mr. Webb did, or did not know that the 

 plan had already been applied to the corn- 

 stalk itself, and exactly in the way that he 

 directs? But this question I by no means 

 ask invidiously. 



J. M. C. 



EaBtern Shore, Maryland, 

 April 14, 1842. 



