SUGAR FROM SORGHUM 225 
six, a month after cutting, which might be partly due to the 
concentration by evaporation. 
No statement is made as to how the canes were preserved 
so long, but they were probably placed underground. 
Experiments at the station in Washington 1 were conducted 
by the chemist in charge, to preserve cane in the same man¬ 
ner as beets are kept. The sorghum canes were placed in a 
shallow ditch, and covered with earth. In January, when the 
ground was frozen, the silo was opened, the cane, from analysis, 
yielding 8.39 per cent, sucrose. The next analysis of the cane 
was made after the winter was practically over. There was 
a small loss of sucrose, and the yield showed 7 per cent. 
Sorghum is preserved in silos in Japan. 2 
The crude juice of the sugar beet is a very unpromising 
product, but the processes are so perfected that nearly all 
the juice is worked up into crystallizable sugar. Mr. Hilgard 
states that “the juice of the sugar beet is in the same cases 
the least pure of sugar-producing plants. To obtain pure 
sugars from such a raw material requires the confidence of a 
chemist in the resources of his science, and the solution of the 
problem stands as one of the most striking instances of the 
utility of apparently recondite research in developing latent 
resources for industrial uses.” 3 
The cells of the sorghum cane are grouped together like 
a honeycomb. The sugar, which is held in a state of solution, 
is contained within the cellular tissue. Dr. Wiley states, 4 
“The idea that sugar exists in the cane in a crystalline form 
is contrary to all rules of chemical physics and accurate 
observation.” 
A process of extracting the sugar from sugar-producing plants 
is based upon taking advantage of the natural condition of 
things as they exist in the plants, and the application of the 
theory of osmose. 
This process, known as diffusion , is the “spontaneous mixing 
1 Bui. No. 3, p. 78, by H. W. Wiley. 
2 From a Report of Consul-General Van Buren. 
3 The Beet Sugar Industry in California , by E. W. Hilgard, Dec. 1886. 
4 Bui. No. 2, Chem. Div. Dept, of Agr., p. 5. 
