NORTHERN SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



15 



average analysis than that of 300 tons of amber cane worked earlier 

 in the season for sugar. 



I wish it distinctly understood that I do not set up these results as a 

 standard by which other varieties of cane grown under other conditions 

 are to be judged. I think, however, that they will fairly represent the 

 sorghum cane grown and manufactured in the United States during the 

 past season. 



i^^aturally when we find a cane richer in sugar than the average just 

 given, we would expect to find a diminution in the quantity of water. 

 Thus when the percentage of sugar to weigbt of cane rises to 16.09, as 

 in one instance in the IS^ew Jersey report already referred to, it is hard 

 to see how the percentage of water could be much over 70. 



But in more than a thousand analyses, extending over two seasons 

 and embracing canes of several varieties and grown in various parts of 

 the country, 1 have never yet found a sample in which the sucrose was 

 greatly more than 10 per cent, of the total weight of the cane. In gen- 

 eral, therefore, we may conclude that canes when ripe have a content 

 of water varying from 72 per cent, for the best varieties to 80 per cent, 

 for the poorest. 



OTHER SUGARS. 



The sorghum cane contains sugars which are not sucrose. This is a 

 point of great inferiority in sorghum, as compared with the sugar beet, 

 regarded as a sucrose-producing plant. These sugars (I speak of them 

 in the plural, because there ar at least two of them) are not crystal- 

 lizable in the ordinary way. The term glucose has been generally applied 

 to them. This term, however, is a general one, and may be applied to 

 any sweet substance. 



The chief one of these ''other sugars" present in the cane is one 

 which does not in any way affect the plane of polarized light. It is, 

 therefore, a sugar unique, and I propose to call it anoptose, a term which 

 signifies a sugar without influence on the polarized ray. 



It is probable that in normal ripe sorghum cane sucrose and anop- 

 tose are the only sugars present. If, however, the cane is abnormal, 

 i. e., injured or frost-bitten, or kept exposed a long time after cutting, 

 the sucrose undergoes a transformation. It is converted into invert 

 sugar, which, at temperatures below 90° C, has a left-handed rotatory 

 power. 



For practical purposes these sugars may be regarded as the same, 

 although it is necessary to carefully distinguish them in optical analy- 

 sis. 



In nearly 300 tons of Early Amber cane (mean of over 300 analyses) 

 the amount of anoptose and iuvertose was 4.09 per cent, in the ex- 

 pressed juice. The mean of numerous analyses of the best samples of 

 Link's Hybrid canes showed about 3 per cent, of these sugars to the 

 total weight of cane. I think that if we take the sorghum crop as 



