92 



The juice was carefully neutralized with milk of lime and brought to the boiling 

 point in the defecating pan. A very heavy green scum rose, and this being removed, 

 the juice wasscen to be full of a green, light flocculent precipitate, which did not sub- 

 sequently rise to the top in any considerable quantity. The juice was now drawn off 

 into a tub, where it was allowed to repose twelve hours. At the end of this time 

 only about one-half of the juice could be drawn off clear, the precipitate being still 

 suspended in the remainder. It was found impossible to filter this portion, and it 

 was, therefore, thrown away. The clear juice, after being passed through bone-black, 

 was evaporated in a copper finishing pan to the crystallizing point. The melada had 

 a very unpleasant, saltish taste, owing to the presence of salts of ammonia. The 

 sugar crystallized very readily, and although it looked well, it still retained some- 

 what of this saltish taste after being separated from the molasses. 



Experiment 2 (August 25) : 



Yield sugar per acre pounds.. 608.7 



Yield sugar per ton d 77. 2 



Experiment 3 : 



Weight of cane pounds.. 1,440 



Weight of melada obtained do 145.8 



Weight of sugar not given. 



Experiment 4 : 



Weight cane pounds.. 1,161 



Weight melada from juice do 95. 5 



Weight sugar from juice do 41. 5 



The authors add the following observations : l 



(1) Seed should be planted as early as possible. 



(2) The proper time to begin cutting the cane for making sugar is when the seed is 

 in the hardening clough. 



(3) The cane should be worked up as soon as possible after cutti.ig. Cane which 

 cut in the afternoon or evening may safely be worked up the following morning. 



(4) The manufacture of sugar can be conducted properly only with improved ap- 

 paratus, and on a scale which would justify the erection of steam sugar- works, with 

 vacuum pans, steam defecators and evaporators, and the employment of a competent 

 chemist to superintend the business. The same is true for the manufacture of glu- 

 cose from the seed. Our experiments were made with the ordinary apparatus used in 

 manufacturing sorghum sirup, and any person who desired to work on a small scale 

 could use the methods with good results, provided he had acquired the necessary skill 

 in neutralizing and defecating the juice and in the treatment of the bone-black filters. 

 The manufacture of glucose on a small scale is entirely out of the question. Five hun- 

 dred to a thousand acres ef sorghum would be sufficient to justify the erection of 

 steam sugar-works, and this amount could easily be raised in almost any community 

 within a radius of 1 or 2 miles from the works." 



Fourteen quantitative experiments were made by the Department of 

 Agriculture in 1882 in the production of sugar. These experiments are 

 described by Dr. Collier as follows : 2 



In the fourteen experiments which were made, quantitatively, eleven of the sirups 

 were a solid mass of crystals j in two of them two*thirds of the sirups were mush sugar, 

 and in the remaining sample the sirup contained a few crystals of sugar, but tho 

 analysis showed that this one had not been evaporated quite to the point of good 

 crystallization. 



1 Op. dt. 502, 503. 



8 Investigations of Sorghum, Special Report, 1883, pp. 55 et teq. 



