1170 
A Talk About Sugar Making 
How Sweets Are Prepared 
Sources of Sugar. — The spoon f ul of and a heavy mud settles, for milk of lime 
white crystals or the glistening lump is nearly always used at this stage. The 
which you drop so easily into your morn- clear liquid is tapped off and the foam 
ing cofTee represents one of the triumphs and mud squeezed out, and perhaps wash- 
of industrial chemistry. For the raw ed, the washings being used to moisten 
material is rather widely distributed in 
nature, and here and there in the world 
some unusual sugais are made, among 
which is that from the maple, although 
as a local industry io us in the North¬ 
ern States it seems more important than, 
for instance, palm sugar. Commercially 
there are but two important sources, and 
the oldest of these, the sugar cane, has 
been known in the East for many centu¬ 
ries. It was not until the Middle Ages, 
however, that its product was at all well 
known, and not until the nations of Eu¬ 
rope began to colonize the eastern and 
western tropics that the culture of the 
sugar cane became firmly established. 
Then the Napoleonic wars, and France 
and Germany, blockaded by sea, turned 
to the beet as a source of sugar, since 
its presence in this plant was well known, 
and the culture was adapted to the cli¬ 
mate. Many difficulties were to be over¬ 
come, however, before the beet sugar, 
which is identical with cane sugar, could 
be produced of a quality and at a price 
to compete with the foreign sugar in 
times of peace. 
The Sugar Cane. — This is a giant 
grass which in some places springs again 
and again from the same root, and in 
other places Is planted anew for each 
crop, sprouting from the joints of old 
cane cut and planted for the purpose. 
However raised, the mature cane is a 
golden and brownish green, looking when 
growing like giant sorghum, and when 
trimmed of the seed and leaves, like very 
large cornstalks. It cannot long remain 
uncrushed after cutting, for not only does 
the sugar content diminish, but it is. in 
those hot lands, likely to sour and decay. 
So it is hurried to the mill, which may 
be a pair of iron rollers over a kettle, or 
a train of giant rolls each 10 feet in diam¬ 
eter. The object is, of course, to get as 
much of the juice as can be squeezed out, 
and, while the local farmer with his lit¬ 
tle mill in the field gets about half the 
juice, the great “Centrale,” as the large 
factories are called in the West Indies, 
first crushes the cane dry and then 
sprinkles with water or a sweet wash 
water and puts it through another set of 
rolls which practically dry it again, and 
by this means nearly all the sugar is 
taken out. The squeezed cane is then 
fed to the furnaces, and the ashes go back 
to the land, for pure sugar has no min¬ 
eral matter in it; it had been built up, 
by the tropical sunlight, from carbonic 
acid gas and water, in the leaves of the 
cane. 
The Cane Juice.—A cloudy, green¬ 
ish juice pours from the rolls, not un¬ 
pleasant to drink, but not very appetiz¬ 
ing either, and very liable to spoil, both 
from yeast fermentation and from the rap¬ 
id growth of bacteria and molds. Not only 
do these feed on the sugar and thus re¬ 
duce the value of the juice, but they make 
the juice slimy, just as similar organisms 
produce “ropy milk,” and the acids which 
they produce tend to split the cane sugar 
into the “invert” sugars. These “invert 
sugars” are one of the main obstacles; 
they are very small dogs in very large 
mangers, for they will neither crystallize 
themselves nor allow the cane sugar to 
crystallize when the juice is boiled down. 
So every care is taken to avoid forming 
them. There are many bodies besides 
sugar in cane juice, some of them of 
an acid nature, some resembling white 
of egg in their ability to solidify when 
heated, and still others which are scarce¬ 
ly in solution, but give the juice a slimy 
character, and the first step is to rid the 
juice of these. The methods vary, from 
stirring the raw juice with the branches 
of a shrub which has been found to 
have a coagulating effect, as is done m 
some of the backyard mills, to the addi¬ 
tion, to the hastily analyzed juice, of 
a complex mixture of coagulating bodies 
made up to suit each batch, as is done 
in the better centrales. Meanwhile, the 
juice is heated, and a thick scum rises 
the once crushed cane, if double crushing 
is practiced. 
Boiling. — The cleared and purified 
juice is now boiled down, in open pans, 
just like maple sugar, in the most primi¬ 
tive places. When rough tests show it to 
be thick enough, it is allowed to cool, 
then the mass of crystals and syrup put 
in coarse bags or barrels with holes and 
the molasses drained off, as far as possi¬ 
ble. Taken altogether, a considerable 
amount of crude sug r is thus produced. 
It is the lowest grade, and should be 
quickly refined, as it is still subject to 
the attack of molds and the like, which 
greatly reduce its final value as well as 
make it hard to refine. But in the larger 
mills the juice is boiled in covered pans 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
black” takes out color no one knows. It 
will not do it indefinitely ; the black must 
be washed and re-heated when it is seen 
to be failing, but if the filter is work¬ 
ing wdli, a nearly colorless syrup goes 
again to the vacuum pans and then to 
the centrifugals. In the old days the 
mass from the pans was drained in con¬ 
ical bags, and as it drained it got hard, 
and when the bag was stripped off there 
remained a “sugar loaf.” “Crushed loaf” 
was the best grade of sugar to be had, 
and if the loaf was sawed instead of 
crushed the well-known cubes were pro¬ 
duced. But to-day the centrifugals de¬ 
liver “granulated” sugar direct, or a 
solid sugar in slabs or rods, as may be 
desired. The product of the centrifugals 
is further dried, and may be ground or 
powdered to any fineness as demand re¬ 
quires. 
Crude Molasses. —The molasses from 
the mills in the tropics is pretty crude 
stuff. Some of it is fermented and dis¬ 
tilled for alcohol, some made into rum and 
some sold for stock feed. In addition 
to the invert sugar, which will form to 
some extent in spite of. care, it has all 
the mineral salts of the juice, and these 
will prevent five times their weight of 
A Coming Fruit Grower. 
from which the air and steam are pump¬ 
ed. This reduces the air pressure on the 
surface of the boiling juice, and so it is 
far easier for the water to boil away, as 
there is little to prevent the water vapor 
getting away from the hot juice, on the 
same principle as a crowd of people can 
scatter themselves quickly in an unfenced 
field, but find it harder and slower to dis¬ 
perse if held back by a high fence. These 
devices are called “vacuum pans,” but 
in practice the vacuum is only partial, 
and is regulated with care. The cooled 
mass from the pans is put into centrif¬ 
ugal machines, the principle being exactly 
that of a cream separator, only here the 
lighter body, the molasses, is the less val¬ 
uable, while the solid sugar, equivalent to 
the “separator slime,” is what is wanted. 
In the best of the big mills these centrif¬ 
ugals give directly a fair grade of brown 
sugar, which can be used for many pur¬ 
poses without further refining. 
Purifying tiie Sugar. —But the snow 
white sugar to which we are used is still 
far from the best of the “raw sugar” of 
the tropical mills. Its production, how¬ 
ever, is merely another process of puri¬ 
fication. The raw sugar is dissolved, co¬ 
agulating bodies added, and heated. Theu 
the syrup is passed through filters filled 
with charred bone. .lust why “bone 
September 25, 1915. 
prevent its escape. It has been found 
that if the ground beets are extracted 
with rather hot water the cells give up 
the sugar better, and nearly all can be 
soaked out. The juice, when concentrat¬ 
ed, also requires rather different treat¬ 
ment, since there are unpleasantly flavor¬ 
ed bodies present, as well as those .which 
prevent the sugar from crystallizing. The 
constant testing and selection of the 
best beets has brought the sugar content 
where it compares with the poorer cane, 
but the beet sugar industry, in this coun¬ 
try, is on a very small margin of profit, 
and constantly liable to be crowded into 
a loss by the tropical sugars, chemical 
success being at -the mercy of freight rates 
and the tariff. While the beet sugar is 
chemically identical with the cane, the 
unpleasant, fishy smell is rarely all taken 
out, and if an inch of cane sugar and 
a like amount of beet sugar are put in 
pint fruit jars, the covers closed tight, 
and the cans put in a moderately warm 
place for a few hours, the odor on open¬ 
ing the cans will usually serve to show 
the source of the sugars. 
Brown Sugar. —It is often noticed that 
brown sugar is sweeter than the best re¬ 
fined, and this is partly because there are 
sweet smelling bodies, refined out of the 
white sugar, which help the effect by ap¬ 
pealing to the sense of smell at the same 
time, and partly because the moisture 
present has already some of the sugar 
in solution, and so a more immediate 
effect is produced when taken directly in 
the mouth. The impurities in the good 
grades of brown cane sugar are actually 
very small, and since they are harmless 
anyway, there is no reason why brown 
sugar should not be largely used. 
Sorgiium. —At one time, quite a num¬ 
ber of years ago, the hope was held out 
that sorghum could be grown by every 
farmer, and, after yielding juice enough 
to make him all the sugar he wanted, 
feed his stock. Now the sugar is there, 
it is in ordinary cornstalks, too, at one 
stage of growth, and in fair amount, but 
the trouble is that in the Northern States 
the sorghum does not grow sugar as it 
does farther South, and in any event the 
juice is also full of other bodies which 
make it impracticable to produce a pala¬ 
table article. The best that can be done 
is to get a fair molasses, which still re¬ 
minds the eater that sorghum is only a 
poor relation of the sugar cane. 
F. D. c. 
sugar from crystallinzing. Cane sugar 
forms a solid compound with lime and 
also with the closely similar strontia, 
strontium being an element very like cal¬ 
cium, which is the metallic base of lime. 
Several processes take advantage of these 
compounds, forming them, washing out 
the more soluble salts, and setting the 
sugar free again by carbonic acid gas, 
the free sugar being dissolved and the 
solution again boiled down, while the car¬ 
bonate is decomposed and used on a new 
lot of molasses. While the theory is sim¬ 
ple, these processes in practice require 
the most expert supervision and exact 
operation, but they and others like them 
have been so perfected that very little 
actual sugar is now allowed to go to 
waste in the large refineries. The busi¬ 
ness has made several fortunes, but only 
by large operation, for a comparison of 
the price of the raw and refined product 
will show anyone that when the cost of 
handling is considered, there is only a 
small real profit on each pound. It is 
not possible for limited capital to enter 
the field. 
Beet Sugar. —Beet sugar processes, in 
general, are those used on cane. But 
the beet does not easily yield its sweet 
juice on crushing; it is held within a 
multitude of minute cells whose walls 
Dried Peaches ; Tomato Catsup. 
Could you tell me how to dry peaches 
so they will not get dark? I would like 
them to be more like the ones that are 
bought. I think they use sulphur, but do 
not know how. Also how to make to¬ 
mato catsup; I have an order for eight 
gallons at hotel, so I wanted it to be 
nice. G - ir - 
Pennsylvania. 
The old-fashioned method of drying 
peaches is first to rub the “hair” off firm 
well-matured specimens. Cut these in 
longitudinal sections not over a half inch 
thick at the thickest part. String these 
on strong threads and suspend them in an 
airy and sunny place to dry. Recently there 
has been developed an apparatus consist¬ 
ing of a series of galvanized wire shelves 
or drawers, one above the other. These 
are thinly covered with the cut peaches 
and placed over the heat of the cook 
stove. It is possible to overcome the 
browning by drying the peaches in the 
presence of hot sulphur fumes, as this 
excludes the free oxygen of the atmos¬ 
phere. 
Tomato catsup is made from thorough¬ 
ly ripe tomatoes. These are washed, 
quartered and may have the cores if 
present removed. Cook for 20 minutes 
and strain through a sieve just small 
enough to retain the seed, skins and de¬ 
bris. To every gallon of this solution 
add four tablespoonfuls of salt, four 
tablespoonfuls black pepper, one table¬ 
spoon cayenne, three tablespoonfuls mus¬ 
tard, one-half tablespoonful ground 
cloves, one-half tablespoonful allspice. 
Cook this for three hours. During that 
time, it will evaporate considerably. It' 
should be stirred quite frequently toward 
the last end. Bottle and seal tightly. 
e. s. k. 
“How stuck-up all the Comeup family 
are!” “No wonder. The head of it made 
his money in a glue factory.”—Baltimore 
American. 
