PART II. 

 EXPERIMENTS AT RIO GRANDE, N. J. 



REPORT OF H. A.. HUGHES. 



SIR: I have the honor to present herewith my report, as superintend- 

 ent of the experiments conducted at Rio Grande the past season, on the 

 manufacture of sugar from sorghum. 



The Hughes Sugar House Company is located at Eio Grande, Cape 

 May County, N. J. The building of this company is constructed of brick 

 and iron, 30 feet square, and fully equipped with machinery for extract- 

 ing and working into merchantable products all of the sugar from 15 

 tons of cane per day. 



The machinery consists of a cleaning and shredding apparatus, a dif- 

 fusion battery, an open evaporator, vacuum pan, hot room, wagons, and 

 centrifugal. 



The cane is cut into sections, freed from leaves, sheaths, and seed tops, 

 and passed in at once to the shredding knives. The leaves and seed 

 tops are also separated and collected into different receptacles. All 

 this machinery is automatic, and the capacity of the cleaning apparatus 

 was proved to be equal to the cleaning of 44 tons in twenty-two hours. 

 It worked without delay or repairs of any description, and the wear 

 and tear was so slight that at the close of the season its condition ap- 

 peared to be as good as when first started. All this apparatus had been 

 thoroughly tested during the season of 1886, 



The shredded cane is packed into perforated baskets and it is then 

 ready for the diffusion battery. 



This battery differs radically from those in ordinary use, and was 

 planned in 1886. During this season its work was not perfectly satis- 

 factory concentration of juice being gained only at a serious loss of 

 sugar in the waste products but after the close of the season and when 

 the battery was properly managed, it was proven and the tests recorded, 

 which have shown that it can extract practically all of the sugar in the 

 cane at an expense for evaporation of 10 per cent, only in excess of that 

 for mill juice; this result is satisfactory, and is believed to better thaa 

 that given by any other battery. The diffusion juice from this battery 



