134 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



construction. The machinery, of course, comes very high, but it must be built in 

 such a way that there will be no mistake about its working, as breakdowns and 

 delays are fatal to the industry during the short season they have to work." 



As competition increases the number of machinery builders and the demand for 

 apparatus of the same kind and dimensions increases, these prices will doubtless be 1 

 reduced. 



ON THE MANAGEMENT OF SUGAR FACTORIES. 



A factory having been well located, properly constructed and equipped, its proper 

 management involves three essentials. First, expert or scientific oversight of the 

 processes of sugar manufacture; second, the utmost economy, good management and 

 businesslike methods in conducting the work of manufacture, seeing to it that there 

 is no unnecessary expense or waste, that labor and machinery are constantly 

 employed to the best advantage and that all the operations of manufacture are man- 

 aged in the best way possible; third, proper financial or business management, in 

 obtaining supplies, selling the product and attending to the manifold and extensive 

 financial operations involved in so large an enterprise. 



The thoroughness with which each of these essentials is observed will govern the 

 profits of the enterprise. No one should put money into the business on the supposi- 

 tion that it is a bonanza that can be conducted carelessly or wastefully or in defiance 

 of business piinciples. Within a few years, the number of sugar factories will be 

 such that, with competition from abroad in the desperate efforts of the foreign sugar 

 industry to throttle American interests, only the best-managed concerns will operate 

 at a satisfactory profit. The fact that a plant can run only about one-third of the 

 year, makes the "dead season" a long one, and also increases the depreciation in 

 machinery. The earnings of the business should be sufficient not only to pay a rea- 

 sonable dividend upon the capital stock, but also to keep up the plant, and to charge off 

 liberally for depreciation. Unless this is done, after a few years repairs will not only 

 consume all profits but perhaps require additional capital. Even in Germany, many 

 failures have occurred in sugar factories, but in 90 per cent of the cases, bad manage- 

 ment was the direct cause. 



"Great progress has been made in the actual science of sugar extraction. Not 

 many years since, it was considered highly satisfactory if molasses residuum repre- 

 sented 4 per cent of the total weight of beets worked while now in many factories If 

 per cent is the least amount that is considered to represent good work in German fac- 

 tories. An improved process of sugar manufacture in Germany is claimed to greatly 

 reduce the bulk of molasses, to only 1.38 per cent of the total weight of beets worked 

 at the factory. In a German factory working under favorable conditions during the 

 past campaign, the beets averaged 12.92 per cent sugar and the extraction was 12.26 

 per cent, the loss consequently being 0.66 per cent of the weight of the beete. This 

 loss was made up as follows: In the residuum cossettes 0.25, waste water from diffu- 

 sion 0.12, filter press scums 0.25, second filter scums 0.03, which means a total of 0.65, 

 leaving 0.01 per cent unaccounted for. There was consumed limestone 4.6 per cent 

 weight of the beet, coke 0.69 per cent, fuel 10.2 Ibs per Ib beets." 



Mr Ware also cites a 550-ton factory (in Germany), where the expense of factory 

 operation of $2.03 per ton of beets in 1893 was by closer management reduced to $1.52: 



