Gillies. — On Sorghum Experiments. 513 



2 feet 6 inches apart in the rows. The land was kept free from weeds by 

 one hand-hoeing and two scarifyings during the season. In a few days the 

 plants showed above ground, but, as usual, were very weakly at first, and 

 did not make much growth for about six weeks, when they shot up with 

 extraordinary vigour. There were a few misses in the rows, in which fresh 

 seed was planted, but it never caught up to the first sown, and got 

 smothered out when the rapid growth set in. The crop, when fit to cut, 

 was about 11 feet high, and contained, by estimation (founded on one ton 

 cut and weighed), at least eight tons of cane. By the 7th March the cane, 

 or at least a considerable portion of it, seemed ripe enough for cutting. I, 

 therefore, had about half a ton cut, topped, stripped, and carted to my mill 

 on that date. On the morning of the 8th we commenced crushing (the 

 cutting being continued) till we had one ton weighed of cane, which was 

 crushed in about seven hours, yielding about 84 to 90 gallons of 

 juice. The juice showed a slightly acid reaction on litmus. I heated it in 

 a copper boiler to 160° F., and added cream of lime till the acid was neutral- 

 ized, without showing any alkaline reaction, and then brought it to boiling 

 point. After a few minutes boiling, allowed it to settle, and, when suffi- 

 ciently settled, we drew off between 60-65 gallons of fine clear amber 

 coloured juice into the evaporator. (We had not time to strain the re- 

 mainder of about 20 gallons.) I used no sulphurous acid on this occasion, 

 there appearing to be no excess of lime. We then evaporated the juice 

 carefully in the open evaporator. Fearing to burn the syrup, we drew it 

 off before it showed sufficient signs of crystallization. The nett result was 

 about 10 gallons of beautiful golden syrup. This we poured into shallow 

 wooden vessels to cool, but after leaving it in these for several days, and 

 finding but little signs of crystallization, I put it into glazed earthenware 

 jars, taking some samples in glass jars for further experiments. After a 

 few weeks I found a considerable amount of sugar crystallized in the jars. 

 One of the samples taken I further evaporated, which, when cooled, crys- 

 tallized, giving, when drained under pressure, 8 ozs. sugar of fine grain of 

 a pale straw colour, leaving 6 ozs. of rich treacle. Mr. Buckland also expe- 

 rimented with a similar sample. He informed me that he carefully boiled 

 the syrup for about half an hour, when he found it give the proper test for 

 crystallization. He then poured the syrup back into the bottle, and in a 

 few days it had crystallized. He had some difficulty in separating the sugar 

 'from the treacle, but eventually succeeded in producing the sugar, fully 

 6 ozs., now exhibited in bottle No. 1. Bottle No. 2 contains the treacle 

 left. The greater weight produced from my sample arises probably from 

 it not having been so well dried as Mr. Buckland's, 

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