34 MAINE AGRICUI.TURAI, EXPERIMENT STATION I914. 



When the juice of any sugar bearing plant, such as the cane, 

 the beet or the maple, is sufficiently evaporated by boiling the 

 resulting material is called sirup. Practically all of the sugar 

 sirup which is on sale is derived from the cane or the maple. 



Upon heating a solution of sugar to the boiling point of 

 water in the open air it is slowly changed to what the chemists 

 call invert sugar. Invert sugar is not as sweet as common 

 sugar, but has practically the same food value. Invert sugar, 

 furthermore, will not crystallize out. The rapidity and extent 

 to which sucrose is changed over to invert sugar depends upon 

 the temperature to which it is heated. Consequently, in 

 modern methods of sugar manufacture the boiling necessary 

 to evaporation takes place in a partial vacuum. Thi^ evapora- 

 tion is carried as far as possible and then the sugars are al- 

 lowed to crystallize out. In the actual process of manufacture 

 it is the purified juice of the sugar plant that is thus evaporated 

 down to a solution of sugar or to a solid or semi-solid consist- 

 ency. When these evaporated and semi-solid crystalline masses 

 of "raw sugar" are allowed to drain there is separated from 

 them a product called "molasses." 



The refiners take the raw sugar from which the molasses 

 has drained and by further treatment refine it until it contains 

 the white crystalline sugars known as "granulated sugar," "loaf 

 sugar," etc. In the process of refining the raw sugar there is 

 also a product formed by inversion which will not crystallize 

 out. This is drained away from the sugar and is known as 

 'refiners sirup" or "treacle." 



From the above it will be noted that there are three liquid 

 materials which are made from sugar producing plants that 

 differ not very markedly one from the other — the sirup, which 

 is the evaporated juice of the sugar bearing plants; molasse;, 

 which is an uncrystallizable by-product that drains away from 

 the crude sugar ; and refiner's sirup or treacle, which is thi 

 uncrystallized material that drains away from the refined 

 sugars. 



The molasses as found in commerce is ordinarily a viscid, 

 dark colored, uncrystallizable liquor and should, strictly speak- 

 ing, be limited to that which is obtained in the process of mak- 

 ing raw sugar. The name should not be applied to that product 

 which is obtained in the refining process. Usually molasses 'a 



