Some Experiments on Sugar Cane. 65 
likely to remain unproved, that average canes in Barbados 
or anywhere else contain as much as 16 per cent, of sugar. 
The experiments made at the Government Laboratory 
have, I think, fairly established the fa6l that a higher per- 
centage of sugar than 16 need scarcely be looked for in 
canes yielding juice of a lower density than 12 deg. Bm. 
According to one of the oldest writers on the cane sugar 
industry (DUTRONE LA COURTURE ; Sur la canne a 
sucre et Vart d'en extraire le sel essentiel. — Paris, 1 790) 
cane juice varies in density in the West Indian colonies 
from between 5 to 14 deg. Bm. This statement seems 
never to have been corroborated, and has been often 
challenged, yet it has been handed down by successive wri- 
ters and is to be found in many standard books of the pres- 
ent day. By keepingcane possessing juice of a high density, 
say 12 deg. Bm., for a week or two before grinding, it is 
quite possible to raise the density of the juice to 14 deg. 
Bm. or above, but I believe there are no satisfactory 
observations recorded, proving that fresh juice has ever 
shown such a density. It is highly probable that the 
French^ writer's statement is founded upon obser- 
vations made without due regard to the increase in 
density that the juice in cane experiences on keeping.* 
* Dutrone's writings seem to have been extensively drawn upon 
by compilers. Peligot writing in 1839 about tne treatise on sugar 
cane by G. R. Porter (1830) complains that: " In his chapter on the 
composition of the juice of the cane, the author translates without 
scruple the chapter of Dutrone on this subject, and does not suspect 
that, in the space of fifty years, these opinions could be somewhat 
modified, in consequence of the progress of science and the chemical 
arts". It is also curious to find in the most recent work on Sugar 
Groining &c. a prominent position is given, but without acknowledg- 
ment, to Dutrone's description and diagrams of the structure and de- 
velopment of the plant, taken apparently from Porter's book. 
I 
