Sugar Making. 2& 



unless properly employed will impair and even prevent crystallization. Mis- 

 takes made in the application of these agents, especially in the first stages of 

 the process, cannot afterwards be successfully remedied. 



As, next to lime, heat performs the leading part in. defecation, its effect 

 depends upon its prompt application and proper distribution, as well as its 

 withdrawal as required. 



On account of the rapidity with which the juice changes from exposure 

 to the air, it is important that all the process of defecation should progress 

 rapidly. In fact the defecation with lime and purification by heat should be 

 combined, the juice running directly from the mill into the defecator. 



CONCENTRATION. 



The usual methods of concentrating or evaporating the sugar cane juice 

 are, first, by the direct application of fire (as in kettles, common pans, and 

 the Cook Evaporator) ; second, by the employment of steam (as in the ordi- 

 nary trains, or the steam trains with vacuum pan). Whilst the steam train is 

 complete in itself, a vacuum pan is often used, especially on the larger plan- 

 tations, as an adjunct to it. 



In Louisiana, with the tropical cane, the common method of evaporating 

 juice has been by use of a series of open kettles, commonly five in number, 

 hung or placed in a row in an arch over a fire, and called kettle train. The 

 arrangement is to place the largest, called the "grande," or defecator, at the 

 foot of the arch, and then have the others diminish gradually in size, towards 

 the front end of the arch to the last and smallest in the row, called the 

 '■'■batterie" or finishing kettle. 



In the kettle train the defecation is very imperfect. The scum is con- 

 stantly and irretrievably remingled with the juice, and locked up by the 

 constant ebullition, and the operation, which requires '.dipping from the 

 grande or first kettle to the second, then from the second to the third, and so 

 on to the last, hinders complete crystallization of all the syrup, and darkens 

 the syrup and sugar by the prolonged boiling and imperfect cleansing. An- 

 other objection to the kettle train i§, that it takes too much fuel in proportion 

 to work done. 



To lessen these serious objections, plain, flat bottom pans, arranged on 

 the principle of the kettle train, and other arrangements of the plain pans 

 have been employed. But no change of principle and no real improvement 

 of importance was made till the introduction of the Cook process, which 

 marks an epoch in open fire evaporation. Whilst the Cook pan, with its 

 high ledges and compartments, more perfectly applies the principle of the 

 kettle train, it retains none of its defects. It secures better defecation, more 

 rapid concentration, improves the crystalHzation, affords lighter colored 

 products, and requires less labor and fuel. 



