34 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



.Ash 



Then in 100 of engar- 



No. 1 — Continued. 



Sum 



No. n. 



Total solids. 



Of which, sugar 



Potash and soda salts 



Lime and magnesia salts 



Nitrogenous organic matter 



Non-nitrogenous organic matter. 



Or for 100 parts of sugar- 

 Potash. &c, salts 



Lime, <fec, salts , 



Nitrogenous, &c 



Non-nitrogenous, &c 



Sum 



Press 



Diffusion 



juice. 



juice. 



5. 36 



5. 339 



18. 516 



16. 373 



23. 87G 



21. 712 



15. 521 



13. 986 



12.41 



11.58 



.458 



.441 



.187 



.191 



1.418 



1.791 



1.048 



.983 



3. 69 



3. 808 



L 507 



L 649 



11.426 



6. 830 



8. 445 



8. 488 



25. 068 



20. 775 



The success of the Robert's diffusion was so pronounced that the pro- 

 cess became rapidly adopted among sugar fabricants, who are, perhaps, 

 in some respects, the most conservative of all manufacturers. 



In 1882 there were in operation in France five hundred and fifteen 

 beet-sugar factories. Of these one hundred and two employed the pro- 

 cess of diffusion. This rapid growth shows that the process is meeting 

 in practice the theoretical advantages claimed for it. 



Statistics are not at hand of the proportion of diffusion to press fac- 

 tories in other portions of Europe, but it is probably even greater than 

 in France. 



DIFFUSION APPLIED TO TROPICAL CANE. 



In 1866, two years after Robert's success at Seelowitz, Mr. Minchin ap- 

 plied the diffusion process to sugar-cane at Aska, Province of Madras, 

 East Indies. With the most primitive apparatus and under the greatest 

 difficulty the experiment was undertaken. 'The diffusion cells were 

 built of wood, and the cane-cutter was a disk of wood covered with 

 sheet iron. 



In spite of these difficulties M. Minchin was able to exhibit samples 

 of diffusion cane-sugar at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and received a 

 gold medal. 



Encouraged by the success of the Aska experiment, attempts were 

 made to introduce the process into Louisiana. In a pamphlet entitled 

 u The Robert Diffusion Process Applied to Sugar-Cane in Louisiana in 

 the years 1873 and 1874," a detailed account of these experiments is 

 given. This is so interesting that I will make a few extracts from it. 



In the spring of 18G9, Dr. Oanisius, formerly United States consul at 

 Vienna, came to New Orleans with powers from Mr. Julius Robert, the 

 patentee for the United States, to introduce this new process here in 

 New Orleans. He had the reports of the Aska Company since 1866, 

 and thought it a very easy matter to convince our planters of the ad- 

 vantages of adopting it at once. He was astonished, at first, at the 

 indifference he met with in New Orleans, which astonishment was 

 changed into disgust after an unsuccessful tour through the sugar par- 



