Report of Society's Meetings. 329 
by Mr. Ferdinand Kohn, consulting engineer of the Aska 
Sugar Company, which is well worth a perusal. Mr. 
Kohn puts the power necessary for slicing, at 1 horse 
power, for cutting up 20 tons of canes in 24 hours. 
Excess of water required over cane juice 20 per cent. 
Labourers not more than required in a rolling mill. 
Cane chips can be used as fuel in a properly constructed 
fire grate. Waste he puts at i*6 per cent in trash and 
3 per cent in waste water. Thus 4*6 per cent loss = 
95-4 per cent of the sugar in the cane recovered. 13 
per cent in Demerary cane at 95^4 = 12*40 recovered. 
This is on all fours with what is done with a well 
arranged pair of mills and saturation of megass as 
now practised in this colony. It therefore resolves itself 
into a question of power ; and according to all authorities 
the slicing requires much less power than crushing, but 
this again has to be weighed against extra crushing. 
This is a point on which I trust Mr. Matthey may en- 
lighten those interested in this big question. One thing 
of importance has been made clear by this discussion, 
and that is that the colonial planter is not quite so back- 
ward as his friends on the other side of the water have 
supposed him to be. 
Mr. Francis, referring to the paper submitted by him 
at the last general meeting, said his main object in it 
was to show that the juice of the cane grown in this 
colony or indeed in any other place, seldom if ever con- 
tained 16 per cent, sugar. 
Mr. Russell said that the cane the analysis of which 
Mr. Francis had questioned was one grown in Barbados. 
It was analysed at the Laboratory at Tuschen in the old 
fashioned way, and undoubtedly a mistake had been 
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