SUGAR—FORAGE 81 
being about 20 tons to the acre. The ordinary method of ex- 
pressing the juice, by crushing the canes between rollers, has now 
largely given place to the superior diffusion process, the canes 
being sliced into very thin transverse sections, and these placed in 
tanks through which hot water is made to circulate until the 
saccharine matter is entirely dissolved out. The yield of juice 
from crushed canes varies from 70 to 85 per cent. The juice is 
boiled down, and raw or brown sugar obtained by crystallization, 
the uncrystallizable residue being molasses. 100 tons of cane 
yield 6 or 7 tons of raw sugar, or more, according to the efficiency 
of the process. The dark-brown colour of this raw sugar is due to 
each crystal being coated with a film of mother liquor containing 
various impurities. The elimination of the latter is effected in the 
refineries, either in the country of production or consumption, the 
raw sugar being dissolved, purified, and then recrystallized in 
vacuum pans at a low boiling temperature to avoid the formation 
of uncrystallizable glucose ; the crystals finally obtained are dried 
in centrifugal machines. Loaf sugar and the large dry crystals are 
almost quite pure; the moist brown contains a considerable 
quantity of syrup and is therefore inferior in quality. The liquid 
residuum of the refining process is treacle or golden syrup, which 
contains about 35 per cent. of true sugar and 30 per cent of glucose 
or grape sugar. The world’s production of cane-sugar is about 
3 million tons, of which 1,300,000 tons come from the West Indies 
(the Cuban crop being 900,000 tons, valued at £12,000,000) ; 
320,000 tons are produced in Java, while India, China, Manilla, the 
United States, Guiana, Brazil, Mauritius, and Natal, produce each 
from 100,000 to 200,000 tons; Egypt, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, 
Reunion, the Sandwich Islands, and Australia (principally Queens- 
land), 30,0co0 to 60,000 tons each. 
What the cereal grasses are to man, the pasture grasses are to 
one of the largest and by far the most important of all the groups 
of the Mammalia—the Ungulata, or hoofed animals—comprising 
the equines, and especially the ruminants, namely, oxen, sheep, 
goats, and antelopes, the Ceryvzd@ or true deer, the camel, and 
Nama, which feed almost exclusively upon the herbage of grasses. 
Various other animals subsist more or less upon grass, e.g. some 
of the marsupials and rodents, and even some of the larger avifauna, 
such as the struthious and anserine birds ; many of the smaller 
birds feed to some extent upon seedling grasses. The utility of 
grasses for forage is of course paramount in relation to the domes- 
ticated animals which are of greatest service to man, and which, 
under his especial care, have so greatly multiplied as to far out- 
number all other large mammalian forms. The ruminants, or 
animals which chew the cud, having a compound stomach peculi- 
arly adapted to the digestion of grass-herbage, also an alimentary 
canal of unusual length, it is this physiological adaptation to 
environment, namely, an exceeding abundance of grass-herbage, 
which enables man to rear these animals in such immense numbers, 
HH. G é G 
