28 BULLETIN 486, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF A(ilU(TLTURE. 



tain on an average about 88 to 90 per cent of its weight in juice. 

 The best modern sugar-factory mills with or 12 rollers and with 

 "saturation" (addition of water between successive pressings) can 

 extract about 80 to 85 per cent of the Aveight of cane in juice. Power 

 mills with a single set of three rollers may effect an extraction up to 

 about '68 per cent. Those of small design, as used on the sirup- 

 making farms, rarely exceed 65 per cent. The small mills driven by 

 6 to 8 horsepower gasoline engines usually give an extraction of 55 

 to 65 per cent, and the horsepower mills frequently even less. With 

 average cane and good management of the mill, the extraction, even 

 with these small mills, should not be below 58 to 63 per cent of the 

 weight of the cane. 



The sucrose (common sugar) content of cane is especialty subject 

 to variation with degree of maturity, seasonal conditions, etc. About 

 11 to 14 per cent ma}' be taken as the usual sucrose content of the 



Fig. 15. — A gasoline-power sugar-cane loader. 



juice in the Southern States. Accompanying the sucrose we may 

 expect to find 1.5 to 2 per cent of reducing sugars (dextrose and 

 levulose, frequently spoken of as glucose). In the earliest part of 

 the harvest season the sucrose content is lower and the reducing 

 sugars higher than they are later. With good mature cane, such as 

 is usually produced in tropical countries, the reducing sugars almost 

 vanish. Besides these sugars, the juice contains from 1.3 to 2 per 

 cent of solids other than sugar. With the usual losses in extraction 

 and other unavoidable losses in the manufacture of sugar and sirup, 

 the actual yield of sugar under favorable conditions in a large fac- 

 tory is 140 to 180 pounds per ton of cane, or about 2 to 2.8 tons of 

 sugar per acre of good plant cane on Mississippi River Delta land. 

 The actual yield of sirup is about 18 to 24 gallons per ton of cane, or 

 about 400 to 525 gallons, equal to 12 to 16 barrels of sirup, per acre 



