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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY.

:TIN_ NO. 17.

LIBRARY,

UNIVERSITY111

—OF—

CALIFORNIA.

JORD OF EXPERIMENTS

CONDUCTED BY THE

COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE

IN THE

MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR

FROM

SORGHUM AND SUGAR CANES

AT

FORT SCOTT, KANSAS, RIO GRANDE, NEW JERSEY,
AND LAWRENCE, LOUISIANA.

1887-1888.

WASHIX<;T<

QOVEBNMKXT I'KINTl
1888.

VHs

CM--

Norman J. Colmaii,

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY.
BULLETIN No. 17.

RECORD OF EXPERIMENTS

CONDUCTED BY THE

COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE

IN THE

MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR

FROM

SORGHUM AND SUGAR CANES

AT

FORT SCOTT, KANSAS, RIO GRANDE, NEW JERSEY,
AND LAWRENCE, LOUISIANA.

1887-1888.

WASHINGTON:

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE,

J 8 s s .
15449— No, 17

INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

Washington, D. C., January 26, 1888.

SIR: Complying with your instructions I beg to submit herewith for
your approval Bulletin No. 17 of the Division of Chemistry, containing
a record of the experiments made by your direction in the manufacture
of sugar from sorghum and sugar canes.

The bulletin is divided into three parts, viz :

PART I, experiments icith sorghum at Fort Scott. — Containing the re-
port of M. Sweuson; drawings and description of apparatus; a digest
of the report of E. B. Cowgill to the State board of agriculture at
Topeka, Kans.; and a statement of the action taken by the Depart-
ment in respect of certain letters patent granted to M. Swenson for the
use of lime carbonates in the cells of the battery.

PART II, experiments at Rio Grande.— Containing the report of H. A.
Hughes, drawings and description of apparatus used, and analytical
Dotes.

PART III, experiments in Louisiana. — Containing the report of H. W.
Wiley of the results of the experiments conducted at Lawrence, La.

In obedience to your further orders, I took charge of the chemical
work of the three stations. During the summer of 1887 the necessary
apparatus and chemicals were purchased and sent to the several stations.
Of my assistants, C. A. Crampton and N". J. Fake were directed to take
charge of the analytical work at Fort Scott, and were furnished with
written instructions for their guidance in taking samples and the gen-
eral method of analyses to be followed.

F. V. Broadbeut and H. Edsou were sent to Kio Grande. They had
the same instructions as were given my assistants at Fort Scott. In
addition to this I personally directed the beginning of their work. On
October 14, 1887, Mr. Broadbent resigned his position in the Department
for the purpose of pursuing his studies abroad. Mr. Edson from that
date had sole charge of the analytical work until the end of the season.

On April 2, 1887, G. L. Spencer was sent to Fort Scott to secure the
removal of certain machinery to Lawrence and joined Mr. Barthelemy
in the work of preparation at that station,.

At the close of the work at Fort Scott, Dr. Cramptou and Mr. Fake

also came to Lawrence to assist in the chemical work at that place.

.j

In the following pages only such chemical data are given as are neces-
sary to illustrate the experiments made. Much of the chemical work
is yet undone, and it would delay too long the publishing of this bulletin
to wait for its completion. All the details of the chemical work for all
three stations will therefore be collected and published in a separate
bulletin, viz, No. 18. The success of the work at all three stations has
been most gratifying, and the diffusion process for the manufacture of
sugar has been advanced beyond the experimental stage by the labors
of this Department, beginning in 1883, and it is now offered to the sugar-
growers of the country with the confident assurance that it is the best,
most simple, and most economical method of extracting sugar both from
sorghum and sugar canes.
Respectfully,

H. W. WILEY,

Chemist.

Hon. NOKMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner.

PART I.

.

EXPERIMENTS WITH SORGHUM AT FORT SCOTT.

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAI,.

FORT SCOTT, KANS., November 9, 1887.

SIR: I herewith submit my report of the experiments in the manu-
facture of sugar from sorghum cane, conducted at Fort Scott, Kans.,
during the present year.

I beg to acknowledge my appreciation of the hearty support that you
have accorded me while in charge of this work.
Very respectfully,

MAGNUS SWENSON.
Hon. NORMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

REPORT OF 31. SWENSON.

Previous to my appointment to take charge of the experiments in the
manufacture of sugar from sorghum cane at Fort Scott, Kans., all at-
tempts to make sugar from this source in paying quantities had failed.
This was due to many difficulties, of both a mechanical and a chemical
nature, in the manipulation of the cane and juice. The most important
problems to be solved were the proper cutting and cleaning of the cane,
the prevention of inversion of cane sugar in the diffusion battery, and to
find a cheap and effective method for treating the diffusion juice.

PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS.

As soon as the earliest of the amber cane approached ripeness a large
number of preliminary experiments were made in defecation and filtra-
tion of juices. The experiments in filtration were made with a small
filter press with a hand pump. The cloth used was the same as that
used in the large presses, and every precaution was taken to make the
results just as valuable as if made on a larger scale. These experiments
were begun on July 29. The filtering materials used were finely pow-

r>

dered lignite, bituminous coal, shale, several kinds of soils, and prepared
carbonate of lime. The following conclusions were derived from these
experiments :

(1) None of the above materials would filter juice satisfactorily that
had an acid reaction.

(2) Neutral juice filtered very slowly and a hard-press cake would not
form in the press.

(3) With a decidedly alkaline juice the filtration took place much
more readily, but was not entirely satisfactory except with carbonate
of lime.

(4) Lignite did not have any apparent decolorizing effect on the juice
except when the juice had become highly colored by adding an excess of
lime, when a slight decolorization took place. A large number of ex-
periments were made with varying quantities of lignite, but in no case
did it show any superiority over fine sandy loam, either as a decolorizer
or filtering medium.

Experiments for testing the cutting, cleaning, and elevating machinery
were also conducted as early as the condition of the cane would per-
mit.

The method of unloading the cane and getting it onto the carrier was
similar to that employed last year. The seed heads, however, were cut
off in the field. The cutters were made by the Belle City Manufactur-
ing Company, of Eacine, Wis. They did the work well, but the ma-
chines were too light to stand the very severe work they were called
upon to do.

The cane was cut into pieces about an inch long and then elevated by
a drag to the top of a series of four fans standing straight" over each
other, each fan being furnished with a separate set of shakers. The
cleaning apparatus, after considerable adjustment, did fairly good work-
The leaves and sheaths were removed by a suction fan. The cleaned
pieces of cane were cut by a rapidly revolving cutter, consisting of a
cylinder carrying thirty knives. The cylinder was made up of three
separate sections, each with ten knives. Although no difficulty was en-
countered in cutting, the work of the cutter was very unsatisfactory. A
large portion of the chips consisted of long pieces with the bark on one
side. Diffusion in this case could take place but in one direction, and
in the largest chips of this kind the extraction of the sugar was very im-
perfect. The drag for conveying the chips to the cells was rebuilt and
placed higher and on one side of the battery so as not to interfere with
the packing of the chips in the cells. The exhausted chips were dumped
directly into a car running on rails under the battery. This car was
run up an incline onto a trestle work about 20 feet from the ground,
by the aid of an endless cable. Two friction clutches, running in op-
posite directions, served to run the car forward or backward, and the car
was so arranged that the charge of exhausted chips could be dropped
at any point by simply reversing the motion of the cable.

EXPERIMENTS WITH CRUSHER.

It was the opinion of a number of men interested in this industry
that a very much larger yield and better quality of juice could be ob-
tained by the crushers if the cane, previously to being pressed, were
cleaned and macerated, and it was deemed best to give the matter a
thorough trial. For this purpose a 3-foot cane mill was purchased from
J. A. Field & Co., of Saint Louis. It consisted of a three-roller mill and
a supplemental two-roller mill. The principal trouble encountered was
in feeding the mill. Even with an arrangement lor forcing the chips
between the rolls not over three tons per hour could be forced through,
and the yield of juice was but little if any greater than when whole
cane was fed to the mill.

The average yield of syrup was about 10 gallons per ton of cane
worked. The same kind of cane yielded by diffusion 25 gallons of syrup
per ton of cane. The cane used in this trial was very poor, being
mostly lodged. These experiments show conclusively the great supe-
riority of the diffusion process for syrup making, a very good quality of
sirup being produced from very poor cane. It was superior in both
color and flavor to the sirup from the mill juice. The juices from the
mill and battery were treated precisely alike and they were skimmed
and evaporated in an open steam evaporator. This is a matter of great
importance to all engaged in the sugar business, as both at the beginning
and close of the season there will be considerable cane that is not fit for
sugar-making, and the fact that 25 gallons of first-class sirup can be
made from such cane by diffusion makes it possible to work even such
material at a good profit.

The first run for sugar was begun on August 20. The juice was made
alkaline with lime, and about 2 per cent, of carbonate of lime was added.
It was then filtered. To other portions of juice, instead of carbonate of
lime, 3 per cent, of ground shale, bituminous coal, and sandy loam were
added respectively. The filtrations were very imperfect except with
the carbonate of lime and in every way corresponded with the pre-
liminary experiments. Lignite was not used on a large scale because
I had at the time no means of grinding it; but judging from a large
number of experiments made in the beginning of the season, it is safe
to conclude that it would not have filtered any better than the other
materials used.

Satisfactory filtrations were only produced when the juice had IHHMI
made strongly alkaline, and no material was found which would filter
the juice when left slightly acid.

On August 30 the first strike was made, and the yield was a little
more than 100 pounds of washed sugar per ton of clean cane.

INVERSION OF CANE SUGAR.

To prevent the inversion of the sugar in battery, about 10 pounds of
dry precipitated carbonate of lime was mixed with enough water to pro-

8

duce a thiii paste. This was added to the fresh chips while the cell was
being filled, and entirely prevented any loss of sugar by inversion.

The carbonate was made by forcing carbonic acid gas by the aid of a
pump into thin milk of lime. The injection pipe was perforated and lay
along the bottom of a 10 by 10 feet tank containing the milk of lime.
The gas was produced by burning coke in a small furnace. When the
lime showed but a slight alkaline reaction it was run off into a large
hole in the ground where the water soon drained away, leaving the car-
bonate nearly dry.

EXPERIMENTS WITH DEFECATION.

On September 1 filtration was dispensed with and experiments tried
with simple defecation. The defecators were similar to those in ordi-
nary use, being simply round tanks with conical bottoms and furnished
with coils for heating the juice. This method of defecation, however,
was not satisfactory, and defecation was tried in a shallow pan 16 feet
long and 26 inches wide, with a partition running lengthwise in the
center, the inlet and outlet for the juice being on the same end of the
pan on opposite sides of the partition.

This pan was gotten up very hurriedly and was supplied with iron
pipes for heating the juice. The juice, after being previously limed and
somewhat heated, was pumped into one side of the long heating pan and
run out at the opposite side continuously.

Being compelled by the center partition to flow down one side and
back on the other, the juice made a circuit of 32 feet. The steam was so
regulated that during the first 16 feet it was gradually brought to the
boiling point, while in the opposite side it boiled vigorously. In this
way a strong current was produced which carried all the impurities in
the form of scum to the quiet portion of the juice, where it was removed
and returned to the battery, thus avoiding all waste and annoyance
from this source.

EVAPORATION.

The juice was evaporated to from 20° to 30° Baume, in a double ef-
fect evaporator built by the Pusey & Jones Company, of Wilmington,
Bel. This apparatus gave perfect satisfaction. All the evaporation
was done by exhaust steam of 4 pounds pressure, a small amount of live
steam being used only when part of the machinery was stopped.

EXPERIMENTS IN BOILING TO GRAIN.

Every strike was boiled to grain in the pan. Several experiments
were made to ascertain the result in boiling "in and in," the juice being
enriched by the addition of sugar made from previous strikes. It is
very doubtful, however, whether this is to be recommended, excepting
when the juice is so poor that a good grain can not be obtained in any
other way.

Owing to the fact that we were unable to secure a sufficient supply
of cane the work progressed very irregularly. Only twice during- the
entire season was the battery kept in operation continuously for twenty
hours, and during the sugar-making season" the diffusion battery was
emptied sixty-two times. This entailed no inconsiderable loss, amount-
ing to from 1 to 2 tons of clean cane each time a stoppage occurred.

CANE WORKED FOR SUGAR.

The total amount of cane worked for sugar was 2,610 tons. In this
is included all that was used for experiments in filtration and defecation
during the first part of the season. I have no record of the exact amount
lost in this way. The total amount of first sugar made was 235,476
pounds. This sugar was all washed, and polarized on an average 96 per
cent. The total amount of molasses produced was 51,000 gallons.

TRIAL RUNS.

In order to ascertain as nearly as possible the average yield of sugar
per ton of cane two trial runs were made.

FIRST TRIAL.

On September 15 a strike was made from 133 tons of clean cane. In
order to obtain a better grain 2,600 pounds of sugar was added to the
juice after it had been defecated ; 2,200 pounds of juice were drawn from
each cell.

The following is a record of this experiment :

Sucrose in mill, juice from chips 10.00

Glucose iu mill, juice from chips 3. 41

Solids not sugar, j uice from chips 3. 20

Ratio of sucrose to glucose 2. 94

Coefficient of purity 60.3

Sucrose in diffusion juice 7. 91

Glucose in diffusion juice 2. CO

Solids not sugar, diffusion j uice ". 2. 5U

Ratio of sucrose to gl ucose 3. 04

Coefficient of purity 60. 4

Sucrose in defecated juice 8.34

Glucose in defecated juice 2. 40

Solids not sugar, defecated juice 2. 46

Ratio of sucrose to glucose 3. 47

Coefficient of purity 63.6

Total weight of first sugar pounds.. 17,608

Sugar added to juice » do 2,600

Total yield first sugar do 15, 008

Total yield of second sugar do 2,330

Total yield of molasses gallons. . 2, 220

10

Yield per ton :

First sugar pounds.. 113.00

Second sugar do 17. 5

Molasses gallons.. 15. 5

First sugar polarized 93. 0

Second sugar polarized 88. 7

Temperature in battery TV as between 75° and 80° C.

SECOND TRIAL.

Eighty-six tons of clean cane were worked; 54 tons on October 1, and
32 tons on October 2. All was boiled in one strike. No analyses were
made on October 2, and unfortunately the complete data can not there-
fore be given. The juice was not enriched as in the previous trial.

The following are the results :

Yield of first sugar pounds . . 9, 292

Yield of second sugar do 1, 988

Yield of molasses gallons.. 1,462

Yield per ton :

First sugar pounds.. 108

Sscond sugar do 23

Molasses gallons.. 17

First sugar polarized 97

Second sugar polarized 88

AVERAGE YIELD OF SUGAR.

Making a fair allowance for cane and juice lost in experiments during
the first part of the season, the average yield of first sugars will be fully
100 pounds per ton, polarizing 97. A strike of average molasses boiled
to string proof yielded 12J per cent, of the weight of the masse cuite in
sugar, containing 83 per cent, of sucrose. This is at. the rate of 28
pounds per ton of cane. Had the entire crop been boiled for seconds
the average yield per ton of cane would not have been less than 128
pounds of sugar and 10 gallons of molasses. From a financial stand-
point the advantage of working for seconds depends entirely on the
sirup market. In my judgment it would not have paid this season, as
the market is better than for years past. The entire product of 51,000
gallons has already been sold at a good price.

AVAILABLE SUGAR.

It is at once apparent that the old method of calculating available
sugar must be abandoned. According to this rule there would be but
G1.6 pounds available sugar per ton of cane in the diffusion juice of the
first trial, when as a matter of fact 130J pounds was obtained. It would
therefore seem that instead of preventing an equal weight of cane sugar
from crystallizing, the glucose and other solids not sugar in the juice
prevented only two-fifths of their weight of cane sugar from crystalliz-
ing. This is also borne out by the data furnished by the analysis of the
juices during the entire season.

11

Average analyses from iablcs prepared by Dr. Grampian.

For week onding-

Mill juices.

Diffusion juices.

Total
sugar
(exhaust
chips).

Brix.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Brix.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

in. 9

17.3
10. 4
16.4
14.8

9 o:>

9.63
S). 44
9.96
9.34

3.46
''. 52
3.24

3. a«

2.98

12.8
12.2
10.9
11.0
10.1

7.74
6.88
6 34
6.60
6.38

2.28
2.35
2.21
2,81
1.90

.09
.96
.63

.98
]. 10

September 24

October 1

October 9 . ..

October 16

• Average for season.

16.3

9.67

3.31

11.4

6.79

2.21

.93

Average ratio of sucrose to glucose in mill juices 2. 92

Average coefficient of purity of mill juices 59. 3

Average ratio ofsucrosetogluco.se in diffusion juices 3.07

Average coefficient of purity of diffusion j uices 59. 5

The above table discloses two very important facts :

(1) The very uniform condition of the cane throughout the entire sea-
sou.

(2) By the use of a small quantity of carbonate of lime in the cells
the inversion of cane sugar is entirely prevented.

The amount of sugar left in the chips is larger than it ought to be.
This is due, as previously stated, to the bad shape of some of the chips.
For this reason the juice was also more dilute, as larger charges had to
be drawn in order to get a more complete extraction. Up to Septem-
ber 22 the amount drawn was 2,200 pounds. From this to October 4
2,640 pounds, and from October 4 to the end of the season 2,420 pounds
were drawn.

The temperature of the battery was maintained near 80°C.

EFFECT OF HEAT.

Iii order to determine the amount of inversion taking place when the
juice was evaporated to sirup, in an open pan, the following experiments
were made. Juice was boiled down in the open pan used for defecating,
and samples taken at different intervals.

The following are the analyses:

3rix.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Katio of sucrose
to glucose.

13.0

8.08

2.39

3.38

21.7

13. 49

3.87

3.48

27.7

33. 30

9. 50

3.50

37. 20

11.36

3.27

41.10

lost.

[Trial on Potter's evaporator.]

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Ratio of sucrose
to glucose.

6.71

2.04

3.44

:!'.). no

11.80

3.32

50. (10

1 5. •-'<;

3.21

5J.OO

13.88

3.21

12

The juice in both cases was made as nearly neutral with lime as pos-
sible.

It seems from the above that the invertive action of the heat has
been greatly overestimated, and that when the juice is not acid no ap-
preciable inversion takes place even when the juice is reduced to a
moderately heavy sirup in an open pan.

From Mr. Parkinson's report it will be seen that the loss in leaves
and sheaths amounted to about 11 per cent, of the weight of the topped
cane. This loss can no doubt be somewhat reduced when the cleaning
machines become better adapted to the work.

According to a number of trials with freshly cut cane the weight of
leaves and sheaths amounted to 10 per cent, and the seed tops to 15
per cent, of the weight of the whole plant. Late in the season when
the leaves become dry this proportion is of course considerably less.

COST OP A FACTORY.

A very important fact to determine is, the capacity and cost of a
factory that will work the cane most economically. There can be no
doubt but the advantages are greatly on the side of the large factory.
The office expenses and cost of management will be but little, if any,
greater. All the machinery required in a large factory is equally neces-
sary in a small one and the proportionate price of this machinery is in
favor of the larger factory. In other words, a factory working 200 tons
of cane per day will cost much less than double the cost of a factory
working 100 tons. Again, the cost of operating a large factory is pro-
portionately much less. It takes no more men to operate a diffusion
battery with a capacity of 200 tons of cane than one half as large, and
this is true of the larger part of the machinery in the factory. A point
may of course be reached where the size of the machinery becomes too
large for economical working, and when the amount of cane needed for
working will be greater than can be grown within easy reach of the
factory.

Judging from our present knowledge, a factory capable of working
from 200 to 250 tons of cleaned cane per day seems the most desirable.
This would require a diffusion battery of 12 cells, each cell having a
capacity of 112 cubic feet. The evaporating apparatus should have a
capacity of 250 tons of water per day and a strike pan with a propor-
tionate capacity. The cost of such machinery will, of course, depend
largely on its kind and quality, and can be readily obtained from any
reliable manufacturer. The cost of a factory is almost always under-
estimated, owing to many items which are not taken into account. The
capital for building a factory of the above capacity should not be less
than $100,000 to $125.000, any thing below being certainly unsafe.
Nothing but the best machinery should be used and every precaution
should be taken to prevent breakage of machinery and to be able to

13

make repairs quickly by having duplicate parts of such machinery as are
liable to break. There is no manufacture which depends more for its
success on the proper working of the machinery than the sugar industry.

COST OF WORKING.

The success of this industry does not depend altogether on how much
sugar can be produced per ton of cane, but the cost of this production
must also be considered.

The success of the work during the past season has been largely due
to the simplicity and cheapness of the processes employed. For the
actual cost of production and other data of the utmost interest to those
who contemplate engaging in this industry, I can not do better than
refer them to the report of W. L. Parkinson to the board of directors
of the Parkinson Sugar Company, which I have the permission to em-
body in this report. 1

There is no doubt but that $2 per ton for working cane are sufficient
to cover all legitimate expenses connected with the manufacture.

UTILIZATION OF THE EXHAUST CHIPS.

It will soon become a matter of necessity to dispose in some way of
the exhausted chips from the battery.

The great amount of this material accumulating about the factory
makes it imperative that they be utilized in some way. Three methods
of disposition have been suggested : (1) To return them to the land as
a fertilizer 5 (2) to use them for fuel; (3) to manufacture into paper
pulp. One of the last two methods will no doubt be adopted. Some
experiments in using for fuel were made during the season. A large
portion of the water was pressed out by passing the chips through a 3-
foot cane-crusher. The chips dropped from the last roll into a hopper,
from which they were taken up by a suction-fan and blown over to the
boiler-house. This method of handling the chips has many features to
recommend it. It is very simple, and, besides, the chips are dried some-
what by being subjected to the strong current of air. No doubt the
making of paper pulp from the chips will become the most profitable
disposition to make of them. Tne cane after being reduced to fine chips
and thoroughly washed in the diffusion battery is certainly in an ex-
cellent condition for this work. No attempts have been made, as far as
I know, to make paper pulp on a large scale from this source, but very
fine samples of pure white pulp have been made in a small way. This
matter is certainly deserving of thorough investigation.

NEEDS OF THE INDUSTRY.

One of the greatest difficulties which will be encountered by those
engaged in developing this industry will be the scarcity of men capable
of operating factories. This will be the most serious hinderance to rapid
1 See Cowgill's Report, p. iJi.)

14

development, as nothing but time can produce men of the requisite ex-
perience. The establishment of a school for training young men in this
work would be of inestimable value. Here they should receive thorough
technical training, which should be supplemented with a drill in the
factories while they are in operation. This would in a short time de-
velop a number of men capable not only of taking charge of a factory,
but also qualified to conduct independent research, which, in so fruit-
ful a field, could not but result in great good to the industry.

The improvement of the sorghum cane is also one of the subjects
which should receive immediate attention.

Although very little has been attempted in this line, enough has been
done to show that the cane sugar is greatly increased by good culture,
and that it is susceptible of very great improvement by the various
methods known to scientific agriculture there can be no doubt. The
idea that sorghum cane will grow anywhere and do well with any kind
of treatment is one of the main causes of poor cane. Instead of re-
ceiving thorough culture, it generally gets only such attention as can be
spared from the other crops. If the price paid for cane could be reg-
ulated by the actual amount of sugar it contained, the farmer would
soon find it to his advantage to devote more time to his cane field.

The establishmeu t of a sugar refinery within easy reach of the sorghum-
sugar factories will be one of the imperative needs an the near future.
The demand for any kind of sugar but wbite granulated is compara-
tively limited. The sugar produced at Fort Scott averaged within 2J
per cent, of being as pure as the best granulated, while the selling price
has been about 1 J cents per pound less, or a difference of about 25 per
cent. The most feasible manner of conducting the refinery, at least in
the near future, will be to supply one or more factories with the addi-
tional appliances needed, and when the season's work is over the sugar
from a number of factories could be refined there during the balance of
the year.

Before closing this report I wish to extend my thanks to Mr. W. !/•
Parkinson, manager of the Parkinson Sugar Company, for his hearty
co-operation. The successful handling, cutting, and cleaning the cane
were due to the results of his thought and labor.

I also desire to express my appreciation of the faithful and valuable
services rendered by my assistants, Messrs. J. (J. Hart and J. N. Wil-
cox; and my thanks are due Dr. C. A. Crampton and Mr. K. J. Fake,
chemists of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, for aid and courtesies
extended.

CONCLUSIONS.

In reviewing the work the most important point suggested is the
complete success of the experiments in demonstrating the commercial
practicality of manufacturing sugar from sorghum cane.

(2) That sugar was produced uniformly throughout the entire season.

15

(3) That this was not due to any extraordinary content of sugar in
the cane, but, on the contrary, the cane was much injured by severe
drought and chinch-bugs.

(4) That the value of the sugar and molasses obtained this year per
ton of sorghum cane will compare favorably with that of the highest
yields obtained in Louisiana from sugar-cane, and, taking into consid-
eration the much greater cost of the sugar-cane, and that it has no
equivalent to the 2 bushels of seed yielded per ton of sorghum cane,
also our much cheaper fuel, I say without hesitancy that sugar can
be produced fully as cheaply in Kansas as in Louisiana.

M. SWENSON.

SUMMARY OF CHEMICAL WORK DONE AT FORT SCOTT, 1887.
[Abstract of report of C. A. Crampton.]

Analyses were begun on the 3d of September, but a full chemical control of the
work was not established until the 8th.

Samples of the fresh chips, diffusion juices, and exhausted chips were taken in the
usual way, great care being taken to have them represent as accurately as possible
the mean properties of the several substances mentioned.

TABLE 1. — Analyses of juices of fresh chips.

Number of analyses 55

Sucrose : Per cent

Mean 9.54

Maximum 11.51

Minimum 6.20

Glucose :

Mean 3.40

Maximum 6. 49

Minimum . 1. 39

Total solids (spindle) :

Mean 1C. 14

Maximum 17. 18

Minimum 13.09

TABLE 2. — Diffusion juices.

Number ot analyses 51

Sucrose : Per cent.

Mean «. 68

Maximum 8.79

Minimum 5.05

Glucose :

Mean 2.26

Maximum 3. 07

Minimum .,. 1.75

Total solids (spindle) :

Mean ... 11.08

Maximum 13.10

Minimum.. 8.64

16

TABLE 3. — Exhausted chips.

Number of analyses 29

Both sugars : Per cent.

Mean 1.03

• Maximum 1-83

Minimum 49

TABLE 4.— Clarified juices.

Number of analyses 25

Sucrose : Per cent.

Mean 6.91

Maximum 8.25

Minimum 5. 11

Glucose :

Mean 2.19

Maximum 2. 85

Minimum 1. 69

Total solids (spindle) :

Mean 11.31

Maximum 13. 35

Minimum - 8, 94

TABLE 5.— Sirups.

Number of analyses 14

Sucrose: Percent.

Mean ; 29.90

Maximum 41.90

Minimum 16. 10

Glucose :

Mean 10.06

Maximum 16. 26

Minimum 7.52

Total solids (spindle) :

Mean 4G. 02

Maximum 60. 40

Minimum 36.20

TABLE 6. — First sugars,

Number of analyses 28

Sucrose : Per cent.

Mean 95. 64

Maximum 98.10

Minimum 92. 40

TABLE 7. — Second sugars.

Number of analyses 3

Sucrose : Per cent.

Mean 85.80

Maximum 88. 70

Minimum 82. 30

The analyses of the molasses, masse cuites, and some other products are not yet com-
plete, but will be given in full in Bulletin No. 18.

The ratio of sucrose to glucose in the fresh chips and diffusion juices for the season
was as follows :

Mill juice , 1: 2.80

Diffusion juice ..„,.. f ,, T ...... T ... T T , . 1 ; 2, 95

1Y

This would seem to show 0110 of two things, either that there was absolutely no in-
version in the battery or that tho glucose in the cane was not so readily diffused as
the sucrose. Tho latter hypothesis seems to be borne out by the analyses of tho ex-
hausted chips as shown in tho following table of analyses:

Sucrose and glucose in juice from exhausted chips and corresponding diffusion juicet.

Date.

Exhausted chips.

Diffusion juices.

No.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

No.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Oct. 8

248

2(iO
267
280
289
294
313

Per cent.
.78
.87
.63
.95
.52
.73
.99

Per cent.
.57
.51
.29
.48
.24
.27
.43

247
259
266
279
288
293
312

Per cent
5.90
6.58
6.17
5.97
6.02
5.66
5.66

Per cent.
3.06
2.09
2.03
1.89
1.80
1.75
2.02

Out 11

Oct. 12 ...

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

Oct. 18

Average

....

.78

.40

£

2.09

15449— No. 17-

THE SORGHUM-SUGAR INDUSTRY IN KANSAS.*

REPORT OP E. B. COWGILL.

OFFICE OF THE STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE,

Topelca, Eans., December 17, 1887.

While all attempts to manufacture sugar from sorghum ia Kansas
had, prior to the present season, resulted in disappointment and finan-
cial disaster, confidence was not destroyed. The failures of the past,
and the obstacles to success, which many of large experience had de-
clared to be insurmountable, seemed only to nerve those whose confi-
dence in the final success of the industry remained unshaken, to renewed
and more determined effort. Congress had been induced to provide
means to aid in the further prosecution of experimental work, but cap-
.ital was required to enable Kansas to avail herself of the assistance
offered. Those having the greatest financial interest in the industry
were generally discouraged, and individuals having nothing at risk
could hardly be expected to invest in so unpromising an enterprise.

Under these circumstances the legislature was appealed to, and on
March 5, 1887, "an act to encourage the manufacture of sugar" was
secured, which provides : First, that a bounty of two cents per pound
shall be paid upon all sugar manufactured in this State from beets,
sorghum, or other sugar-yielding canes or plants grown in Kansas.
Second, that no bounty shall be paid upon sugar containing less than
90 per cent, of crystallized sugar, the quantity and quality to be deter-
mined by the secretary of the State board of agriculture, or other per-
son appointed by him, the cost of such inspection to be borne by the
claimant. Third, the sum of money so to be paid shall not exceed in
any one year $15,000.

The secretary of the board, recognizing his inability to perform the
duties imposed by the act above referred to, did, on the loth day of
August, 1887, by virtue of the authority in him vested, appoint and
commission Prof. E. B. Co wgill inspector, under the provisions of said
act, and authorized and empowered him to do and perform, all and sin-
gular, the duties as such inspector; also to make such observation and

* This report lias been corrected by the author, several errors having been over-
looked in the advance sheets.

18

19

investigation of the means and methods employed in the manufacture
of sugar as the public interest might seem to require ; and to report to
this office, as required by law, and indicated in the instructions trans-
mitted with said commission, as follows :

STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE,

Topeka, Kam., August 15, 18.-7.

DEAR SIR: In inspecting sugar, on which bounty is claimed under the act of the
legislature approved March 5, 1887, and in your observations of processes, and in
investigating the subject of sugar making in Kansas under the commission herewith
presented, you will observe the following instructions :

I. In accordance with section 2 of said act, you will proceed to inspect sugar made
in Kansas when called upon by the manufacturers, and,

First, determine the percentage of crystallized sugar, uncrystallized sugar, and of
substances not sugar, contained in each package presented for inspection.

Second, keep a full and correct record of the quantities and qualities of sugar on
which bounty is claimed.

II. In determining the quality of sugars you will make analyses by the copper
reduction, or such other method or methods as you may deem best.

III. You will weigh and brand all sugars inspected, and keep possession of the
same until delivered or consigned to purchaser, and you will keep a correct record of
each delivery and consignment: Provided, That you may permit delivery and ship-
ments to be made, during your absence from the works, by some person to be desig-
nated by you , who shall keep a-full and correct record of such delivery and consign-
ment, and present to you a sworn statement of the same, together with receipts of
purchaser or transportation companies.

IV. You shall also take such sworn testimony of manufacturers, employe's, station
agents, or consignees, and such other evidence as shall fully determine the quantity
of the sugar to be reported for payment of bounty.

V. When the entire product of the season at any factory has been inspected, and
your record completed as above directed, you will transmit to this office a sworn state-
ment, showing the quality and quantity of sugars made by said factory, and will turn
over to the manufacturers all unsold products.

VI. Yon will observe processes and experiments, and make investigations as oppor-
tunities permit, and report fully to this office, to the end that the people of the State
may have the advantage of all information gained and processes developed under the
encouragement of the bounty provided in the act above referred to.

Yours truly,

WM. SIMS,

Secretary State Board of Agriculture.
Prof. E. B. COWGILL,

Sterling, Kans.

The appointment above referred to was, on the 21st day of August,
1887, duly accepted by Professor Cowgill, who filed herein his oath of
office, and at once entered upon the duties of his said appointment, and
who, on the 7th day of December, 1887, delivered to the secretary of
the board his report, as such inspector, showing the quantity and quality
of sugar contained in each of the packages presented for inspection, and
on which bounty was claimed and is now due under the provisions of
the act of March 5, 1887, above referred to.

This report shows 842 packages, containing 234,607 pounds of sugar,
to have been inspected and branded as provided by law, and that the

20

packages so inspected contained from 92 to 98 per cent, of crystallized
sugar, respectively.

The amount claimed as bounty, and due thereon from the State treas-
ury, is $4,692.14, leaving of the appropriation for 1887, above referred
to, unclaimed, the sum of $10,307.86.

And afterwards, to wit, on the 15th day of December, 1887, there was
filed in this office, by Professor Cowgill, his complete and final report
relating to the sorghum-sugar industry in Kansas, which is herewith
submitted for the information of the public.

WM. SIMS,

Secretary.

I/ETTER OF TRANSMITTAL..

SIB: Under commission from your office dated August 15, 1887, and
instructions to inspect and brand sugars made in this State during the
season of 1887, as provided in the act of the legislature approved March
5, 1887, and under your further instructions to ascertain whether sugar-
making in Kansas is a success or a failure, and why, I proceeded to the
Parkinson Sugar Works, at Fort Scott, the only sugar factory in opera-
tion in the State, and inspected and branded the sugar produced, as
set forth in detail in Exhibit A. I also made a careful study of the
processes used, and submit herewith my report. I am aware that much
that is contained in the following pages is not new to those familiar
with the usual methods of making sugar $ but realizing that to most of
those who will read this report the details of the entire subject are new,
I have deemed it proper to describe the old as well as the new in the
processes employed in the manufacture as at present conducted. I
have not hoped to enable persons unfamiliar with the subject to at once
enter upon the profitable manufacture of sugar, but to help those who
are studying the subject, and to place reliable information on a most
important new industry within the reach of the intelligent Kansas
public.

I am, sir, yours respectfully,

E. B. COWGILL.
Hon. WM. SIMS,

Secretary State Board of Agriculture.

EEPORT OF E. B. COWGILL.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

The sorghum plant was introduced into the United States in 1853-'54
by the Patent Office, which then embraced all there was of the United
States Department of Agriculture. Its juice was known to be sweet,
and chemists were not long in discovering that it contained a consider-
able percentage of some substance giving the reactions of cane sugar.
The opinion that the reactions were due to cane sugar received repeated
confirmations in the formation of true cane-sugar crystals in sirups made
from sorghum. Yet the small amounts that were crystallized, compared
with the amounts present in the juices as shown by the analyses, led
many to believe that the reactions were largely due to some other sub-
stance than cane sugar.

EARLY INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE.

During the years 1878 to 1882, inclusive, while Dr. Peter Collier was
chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, much attention was
given to the study of sorghum juices from canes cultivated in the gar-
dens of the Department, at Washington. Dr. Collier became an en-
thusiastic believer in the future greatness of sorghum as a sugar-pro-
ducing plant, and the extensive series of analyses published by him
attracted much attention from sugar-makers in the South, and students
of the chemistry of sugar throughout the country.

SUGAR FACTORIES ERECTED IN KANSAS.

Stimulated by the analytical results published by Dr. Collier, inter-
ested parties erected large sugar factories and provided them with costly
appliances. Hon. John Beuuyworth erected one of these at Larned, in
this State. S. A. Liebold & Co. subsequently erected one at Great Bend.
Both of these factories made some sugar, both lost money, and both quit
the business.

Sterling and Hutchinson followed with factories which made con-
siderable amounts of merchantable sugar at no profit.

The factory at Sterling was erected by R! M. Sandys & Co., of New
Orleans, who sought, by combining Mr. Sandys' thorough knowledge of

21

22

sugar with the best practical skill of the South, to establish the sorghum-
sugar industry on a proper basis. For two seasons this combination
worked faithfully, and while the sirup produced paid the expenses of
the factory, not a crystal of sugar was made. The factory then in 1883
changed hands, and passed under the superintendency of Prof. M. A.
Scovelljthen of Champaign, 111., who, with Professor Weber, had worked
out, in the laboratories of the Illinois Industrial University, a practical
method for obtaining sugar from sorghum in quantities which at prices
then prevalent would pay a profit on the business. But prices declined,
and after making sugar for two years in succession the Sterling factory
succumbed.

The Hutchinson factory at first made no sugar, but subsequently
passed under the management of Prof. M. Swenson, who had success-
fully made sugar in the laboratory of the University of Wisconsin. Large
amounts of sugar were made at a loss, and the Hutchinsou factory closed
its doors. In 1884 Hon. W. L. Parkinson fitted up a complete sugar
factory at Ottawa, and for two years made sugar at a loss. Mr. Parkin-
son was assisted during the first year by Dr. Wilcox, and during the
second year by Professor Swenson.

INFORMATION GAINED.

Much valuable information was developed by the experience in these
several factories, but the most important of all was the fact that, with
the best crushers, the average extraction did not exceed half of the
sugar contained in the cane. It was known to scientists and well-in-
formed sugar-makers in this country that the process of diffusion was
theoretically efficient for the extraction of sugar from plant cells, and
that it had been successfully applied by the beet-sugar-makers of Europe
for this purpose.

FURTHER WORK OF THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

In 1883, Prof. H. W. Wiley, chief chemist of the Department of Agri-
culture, made an exhaustive series of practical experiments in the lab-
oratories of the Department on the extraction of the sugars from sorghum
by the diffusion process. His report sums up the results of his experi-
ments as follows :

(1) The extraction of at least 85 per cent, of the total sugars present was secured.
In many of the experiments, as will be seen by consulting the table, scarcely a trace
of sugar could be detected in the exhausted chips.

(2) The production of a quantity of melada represented by from 10.9 to 12.28 per
cent, of the weight of the cane diffused.

This was secured with a cane in which the total sugars did not exceed 11.68 per
cent. The percentage of melada by this process will be found just about equal to the
per cent, of total sugars in the cane.

It ought to be greater with a more perfect extraction, but I am speaking only of
results actually obtained.

This yield is just about double that obtained by the large factories at Rio Grande,
Champaign, and other places.

23

(3) The production of a juice of great purity, which lends itself easily to processes
of depuration.

I consider the experiments, however, to have their chief value in the fact that they
•will call the attention of cam>-<;n>\ver8 to the advantages which a rational system of
diffusion will have over pressure in the extraction of the saccharine matter.

I hope to be able at the end of another season to report further progress iu this in-
teresting problem.

In the present condition of the sorghum-sugar industry, in which it has alike to be
protected from the over- zeal of its friends and the opposition of its enemies, the proc-
ess of diffusion offers the most promising outlook for success. It therefore seems the
duty of this division to make a more practical test of this process and on a larger
scale.

To make the necessary further experiments with diffusion, required
the expenditure of large sums of money. As already shown, the pri-
vate companies had lost heavily. They were utterably unable to com-
plete the experiments so hopefully begun by the Department of Agri-
culture.

THE AID OF CONGRESS SOLICITED.

At this crisis Hon. W. L. Parkinson and Mr. Alfred Taylor, of Ot-
tawa, Kans., after consulting with others interested in the then lan-
guishing sorghuin-sugar industry, went to Washington to call the atten-
tion of Congress to the important results promised for the diffusion
process, aud to show that, without the aid of an appropriation, all that
had hitherto been accomplished would be practically lost. The Kansas
delegation in Congress became interested. Senator Plumb made a
thorough study of the entire subject, and, with the foresight of states-
manship, gave his energies to the work of securing an appropriation of
$50,000 for the development of the sugar industry. This appropriation
was made during the last days of the session of 1884. The season was
too far advanced to erect and use the diffusion apparatus with sorghum
cane, and it was, by the Commissioner of Agriculture, sent to Louisi-
ana^ and sorghum got no benefit from this first appropriation.

ANOTHER APPROPRIATION.

In 1885, Senator Plumb, at the request of Judge Parkinson, Professor
Swenson, and others, again labored for an appropriation for experiments
with diffusion. It was shown by Judge Park iuson, and all others in-
terested in the sorghum-sugar industry, that this was the only hope for
success. Fifty thousand dollars for this purpose was again added to
the agricultural appropriation bill, on the amendment of Senator Plumb.
This was expended at Ottawa, Kans., and iu Louisiana. The report
of the work at Ottawa closes as follows:

(1) By the process of diffusion 98 per cent, of the sugar in the cane was extracted,
aud the yield was fully double that obtained iu the ordinary way.

(-2) The difficulties to be overcome in the application of diffusion are wholly me-
chanical. AVit.li the apparatus on hand tin- following changes ard necessary in order
to be able to work 120 tons per day : (a) The diffusion cells should be made twice as

24

large as they now are; that is, of 130 cubic feet capacity. (&) The opening through
which the chips are discharged should .be made as nearly as possible of the same area
as a bo rizontal cross-section of the coll. (c) The forced feed of the cutters requires
a few minor changes in order to prevent choking, (d) The apparatus for delivering
the cbips to the cells should be remodeled so as to dispense witb the labor of one man.

(3) The process of carbonatation for the purification of the juice is the only method
which will give a limpid juice with a minimum of waste and a maximum of purity.

(4) By a proper combination of diffusion and carbonatation the experiments have
demonstrated that fully 95 per cent, of the sugar in the cane can be placed on tbe
market either as dry sugar or molasses.

(5) It is highly important that the Department complete the experiments so suc-
cessfully inaugurated by making the changes in the machinery mentioned above and
by the erection of a complete carbonatation outfit.

Respectfully,

H. W. WILEY, Chemist.

But while so much had been accomplished by the joint efforts of the
United States Department of Agriculture and the Ottawa company,
the financial results were so disastrous to the company as to leave them
utterly unable to further co-operate with the Government in the prose-
cution of the work.

THE FORT SCOTT COMPANY ORGANIZED.

At this juncture Judge Parkinson saw that he must either submit to
defeat or organize a new company to co-operate with the Department
of Agriculture, should Congress be wise enough to make another ap-
propriation. In this straight he went to Fort Scott and organized the
Parkinson Sugar Company, which is now composed as follows : J. D.
Hill, president; Eli Kearnes, vice president ; M. Swenson, secretary
and chemist; W. Chenault, treasurer; W. L. Parkinson, manager; C.
F. Drake, A. W. Walburn, W. W. Pusey, J. W. Converse, and David
Richards.

Taking up the work where all others had failed, this company has
taken a full share of the responsibilities and losses, until it has at last
seen the Northern sugar industry made a financial success.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MAKES AN APPROPRIATION.

The report of 1885 showed such favorable results that in 1886 the
House made an appropriation of $94,000, to be used in Louisiana, New
Jersey, and Kansas. A new battery and complete carbonatation appa-
ratus were erected at Fort Scott. About $60,000 of the appropriation
was expended here in experiments in diffusion and carbonatation.

In his report Dr. Wiley arrived at the following conclusions :

In a general review of the work, the most important point suggested is the abso-
lute failure of the experiments to demonstrate tbe commercial practicability of manu-
facturing sorghum sugar. Tbe causes of this failure have been pointed out in the
preceding pages, and it will only be necessary here to recapitulate them. They were •"

(1) Defective machinery for cutting the canes and for elevating and cleaning the
chips and for removing the exhausted chips.

25

(2) The deterioration of the cane due to much of it becoming over-ripe, but chiefly
to the fact that much time would generally elapse after the canes were cut before
they reached the diffusion battery. The heavy frost which came the first of October
also injured the cane somewhat, but not until ten days or two weeks after it oc-
curred.

(3) The deteriorated cane caused a considerable inversion of the sucrose in the bat-
tery, an inversion which was increased by the delay in furnishing chips, thus caus-
ing the chips in the battery to remain exposed under pressure for a much longer time
than was necessary. The mean time required for diffusing one cell was twenty-one
minutes, three times as long as it should have been.

(4) The process of carbonatation, as employed, secured a maximum yield of sugar,
but failed to make a molasses which was marketable. This trouble arose from the
small Quantity of lime remaining in the filtered juices, causing a blackening of the
sirup on concentration, and the failure of the cleaning apparatus to properly pre-
pare the chips for diffusion.

THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE DISCOURAGED.

After the expenditure of so much money, and the publication of so
discouraging a report as that of 1886, the Commissioner-of Agriculture
declined to ask for further appropriations.* But Senator Plumb again
came to the rescue, and, by a faithful presentation of the possibilities
of the case, induced Congress to make an appropriation of $50,000, of
which $24,000 was apportioned to Louisiana, $6,000 to Rio Grande, IN".
J., and $20,000 to Fort Scott, Kans.t

SUCCESS AT LAST.

This year the Fort Scott management made careful selection of essen-
tial parts of the processes already used, omitted non-essential and cum-
brous processes, availed themselves of all the experience of the past in
this country, and secured a fresh infusion of experience from the beet-
sugar factories of Germany, and attained the success which finally
places sorghum sugar-making among the profitable industries of the
country.

STATE ENCOURAGEMENT.

The State of Kansas had, by all reports, been indicated as the center
of the sorghum -sugar industry, when it should be developed. Kansas
statesmen in the legislature, as early as 1885, conceded that the State
should assist in the development of the new industry. In that year
Hon. K. F. Bond, member of the house from Rice County, prepared and
introduced a bill providing for a bounty of 1J cents per pound, to be
paid out of the State treasury, on all sugar manufactured in the State

* The non-action of the Commissioner is misunderstood by Mr. Cowgill. When the
House Committee on Agriculture made the appropriation of the preceding year it was
agreed that no subsequent grant should be demanded. It was in harmony with this
agreement and not for the reasons stated that the Commissioner did not ask for a
further appropriation.

1 The distribution of the money to the various stations was left to the discretion of
the Commissioner, and was not mentioned in the bill.

26

for five years. The bill awakened a great deal of enthusiasm, and, at
the same time, a factious opposition, and was lost. At the session of
1887 Senator Bawden, of Bourbon County, introduced a bill providing
for a bounty of 2 cents per pound, to be paid upon all sugar manufact-
ured in the State for five years, the maximum amount to be paid in any
year being limited to $15,000. This bill became a law.

It will thus be seen that the present condition of the sorghum-sugar
industry is due to private enterprise, aided by Government and State
appropriations, and directed by scientific and practical skill.

COMMISSIONERS OF AGRICULTURE LE DUG, LORING, AND COLMAN.

It should be mentioned in this connection that United States Com-
missioner of Agriculture Le Due extended a strong and friendly hand
to the sorghum-sugar industry during his term of office. His succes-
sor, Commissioner Loring, had the work continued by Professor Wiley,
but was himself skeptical as to results. The present Commissioner,
Hon. Norman J. Colrnan, had been an advocate of sorghum for many
years before his accession to office, and had probably written and pub-
lished more on the subject than any other man in the United States.
Every friend of the struggling industry was gratified at his appoint-
ment. He has extended all the aid at his command, and may justly
feel proud of the attainment of the present success under his adminis-
tration of the Department of Agriculture.

THE PRESENT STATE OF THE INDUSTRY.

The experiments in making sugar from sorghum, which, as above
shown, have been in progress for several years at the expense of private
capital and the United States Department of Agriculture, have this
year reached so favorable results as to place the manufacture of sor-
ghum sugar on the basis of a profitable business, as will be seen by the
report to his company of Hon. W. L. Parkinson, manager of the Fort
Scott works.

The success has been due to, first, the almost complete extraction of
the sugars from the cane by the diffusion process 5 second, the prompt
and proper treatment of the juice in defecating and evaporating 5 third,
the efficient manner in which the sugar was boiled to grain in the strike-
pan. That these results may be duplicated and improved upon will be
readily understood from the showing made in Mr. Parkinson's report,
and the descriptions of methods and processes used, and the discussion
of the same as they appear in the subsequent pages of this paper.

REPORT OF W. L. PARKINSON.

To the Board of Directors Parkinson Sugar Company:

GENTLEMEN : I respectfully submit for your consideration the following report of
the operations of the works of your company for the season just closing :

It is provided in our contract with the United States Department of Agriculture
that certain experiments in sugar-making shall be made by the Department with cer-
tain machinery of its own and at its own expense, using the company's plant and

27

machinery. Many of those experiments have been so closely allied to and dovetailed
into the regular work of the factory that it is very difficult, if not wholly impossible,
to clearly separate the cost of the experimental work from that of the general opera-
tion of the factory during the season. At the same time it is highly important that
you know as precisely as possible the cost of working and the profit or loss on each
ton of cane handled.

As you are aware, the crop of cane contracted for last spring was very much less than
the capacity of our works to consume. It was considered prudent to limit our dan-
ger from loss, by reason of the experimental nature of the work, and at the same time
to have sufficient cane to determine thoroughly the value of the work on a practical
manufacturing basis. This has been done, though it is now apparent that had the
crop been twice as large, the expenses for working it would have been relatively much
less. Indeed, a crop double the size of the one just finished could have been worked
in about the same time, and at a comparatively trifling additional expense. The
plans, methods, and processes which have made the work of the season successful be-
yond our most sanguine expectations-, were adopted early in the season, so that the
risks incident to experiments taken into account when contracting for a crop were
reduced to the minimum. The fact that at least a portion of these highly successful
processes were not tried and adopted last season was no fault of your company, nor
of any one connected with this season's work.

To arrive at the cost per ton of cane worked, let us take the working of a single
average day, when in full operation, and apart from the cost of experiments referred
to.

The capacity of our factory, aside from deficient centrifugals, is limited to the ca-
pacity of the diffusion battery. Working twenty-two hours per day, this battery can
comfortably handle 135 tons of chips, or cleaned cane. This represents a capacity of
field cane, or cane with seed tops and blades, of about 170 tons. To handle this, aside
from curing and handling seed, cost us per day of twenty-two hours, when running
regularly, as follows:

1 weighmaster, at $2 $2. 00

1 team, pulling cane onto storage racks, at $2.50 2. 50

5 men, unloading and getting cane to cutters, 22 hours, at 12^ cents 13. 75

1 man, cutting machine, at 15 cents. 3.30

1 man, cleaning machine, at 12| cents 2. 75

1 man, grinder, etc., at 15 cents 3.30

1 man, oiler, at 15 cents 3. 30

3 men, diffusion battery, 1 at car and 2 above, at 12 £ cents. ., 8. 25

1 man, diffusion battery, director of battery, at 20 cents 4.40

2 men, defecating, at 15 cents ~ 6.60

2 men, double effects, at 15 cents — 6. 60

1 man, strike-pan, at $5 5.00

1 man, hot room, at 12^ cents 2.75

1 man, barreler, at 12^ cents 2. 75

2 men, centrifugals, at 15 cents .. . 6. "60

1 man, machinist, at $3 3. 00

2 men, engineers, at 20 cents 4. 40

5 men, firemen, at 15 cents 16.50

2 men, roustabouts, at 12£ cents 5. 50

1 man, water boy 2. 00

1 man, night watch 1. 50

2 men, foremen, at $2.50 5.00

Total cost of labor 111.?:.

Oil, etc 2.50

Coal, 23 tons slack, at 90 cents 20.70

Total 134. 75

28

This makes the cost of working a ton of cleaned cane, with a factory of the capac-
ity of ours, about $1 per ton for labor and fuel, or 90 cents per ton of field cane. The
cost per ton for salaries, insurance, wear and tear, etc., must depend, of course, not
only upon the size of the salaries and other general expenses, but the number of tons
worked. This plant, rated as above, is capable, in seventy days, of working 9,450
tons of chips, or 11,900 tons of field cane. There is necessarily considerable expense in
preparing for the season's work, and again in closing up. Allowing liberally for this
and for the proper management and control of the works, we may still bring our total
expenses, outside the cost of labor and fuel, a_t $1 per ton upon the above basis. Add
to this the cost of labor and fuel, and we have $2 per ton as the total cost per ton of
working cleaned cane. These figures are fully verified by our pay-rolls, coal bills,
and other expenses while working to our capacity during the season, separated from
expenditures in the completion and changing of machinery directly connected with
experiments made. And to work a factory with a capacity at least one-half greater
than this one would require very little additional expense except in the matter of
fuel, and that would be relatively less. It seems to rue a very conservative basis,
with {t. factory of the capacity of ours, to place the actual cost of manafacture at $2
per ton of cane; and with such a factory as I have indicated, and with a season of,
say, seventy days, it is safe to place the cost of manufacture at considerably less than
that sum. It requires but little figuring upon this basis, and with the cost of cane at
$2 per ton, and the yield of cane and product secured this year, to show that we have
here developed a business of great interest and profit to our State and Nation.

To run a factory at the maximum profit it must be operated constantly during the
working season. The loss this season by reason of the irregular operation of the fac-
tory for want of sufficient cane was very consideraole. During the whole season the
factory was operated but three whole days of twenty-two hours each. Some idea of
the loss from this source may be gathered from the fact that not less than 2 tons of
chips were lost at each break in the operation of the diffusion battery. Sixty-five
such breaks or stoppages were made while running for sugar. With a larger crop of
cane and better arrangements for delivery upon the part of the larger contractors,
but little or no difficulty from this source need be apprehended in the future.

Tons.

Total cane bought 3, 840

Total seed tops bought 437

Total field cane 4, 277

This represents the crop, less about 30 t^ns of seed tops yet to come in, from about
450 acres of land. There were something over 500 acres planted. Some of it failed
to come at all, some "fell upon the rocky places, where they had not much earth, and
when the sun was risen they were scorched ;M so that, as nearly as we can estimate,
about 450 acres of cane were actually harvested and delivered at the works. This
would make the average yield of caue 9| tons per acre, or $19 per acre in dollars and
cents. I beg to observe, in this connection, that the present was the lightest in ton-
nage of the five successive crops I have handled. It was probably also the poorest in
orystallizable sugar, covering the same period of time, in the State. It may not be
amiss to observe, too, in this connection, that a very commonly accepted theory, that
" the dryer the weather the sweeter the cane," is not verified by my experience.

Of the total cane worked, 162 tons were consumed in experiments with our cutters
and cleaning machinery before the cane was ripe enough for use for either sirup or
sugar. No product whatever, not even seed, was saved from this, nor from 10 tons
additional brought in since the factory closed down. About 300 tons of mostly down
and inferior cane was worked in the early part of the season on the crushers, and
without diffusion. The only product from this was molasses, and of that but a small
quantity. About 375 tons were also worked for molasses only on the diffusion battery.
This, with the exception of 50 tons at the close of the season, and which came in too
irregularly to be worked for sugar, was worked before the sugar season began, and

29

comprised such down patches and poorer quality of cane as could be gathered, mainly
on the lands belonging to the company. It was an open question whether very poor
cane could bo worked successfully, even for sirups, on a diffusion battery. Nothing
in this direction had hitherto been attempted. The total yield of molasses from this
source, and from which no sugar has heen taken, is 4, 157 gallons. From this are sold
3,157 gallons, for $726.71 net. The remaining 1,000 gallons are still on hand, and are

worth 25 cents per gallon.

Tons.
Deducting from total tonnage, less seed 3, 840

Amount not worked for sugar 897

We have total cane and leaves for sugar 2, 943

The total number of diffusion cells worked for sugar is 2,643. The weight of a cell
of chips is 1,975 pounds. With this as a basis there was worked by diffusion for sugar
2,610 tons of clean cane as it entered the cells. Deducting this from 2,943 tons of
cane, with leaves and blades, and we have 333 tons of leaves and blades. The latter
are to us a dead loss. A small portion has been hauled away by farmers for feed, but
the bulk of this large tonnage is now fit only for manure. This waste was consider-
ably increased by the failure of our separating machines, especially in the early part
of the season, to properly discharge their duties. This whole subject was new ; ma-
chines had to be devised, and their adjustment, which is not yet perfect, caused con-
siderable loss of cane. The weight of blades and leaves will not be far from 10 per
cent, of field cane. For either feed or fuel, especially where the latter is much of an
object, the blades can be utilized so as to at least cover their own cost. At present
we figure the loss from this source to seed account.

SEED.

There have been delivered of seed tops 437 tons. As nearly as we can estimate,
there are yet to be delivered 30 tons, making in all 467 tons. From the best calcula-
tions we can make, and judging from our experience in former years, seed yields
about 70 per cent, of the weight of heads, as bought in over the scales, in cleaned
seed. Putting it at 60 per cent., and with 56 pounds to the bushel, we shall have
10,000 bushels of cleaned seed. A portion of this, estimated at 1,000 bushels, has, at
considerable additional expense, been picked over by hand, head by head, tied into
small bundles, and hung up in the dry. This has been done to provide ourselves with
pure seed of the different varieties for planting, and to supply a probable want in the
same direction from others. For this hand-picked seed we expect to get not less than
$2 per bushel. The cost of handling the seed has not been kept separate from the
cost of running the factory. The total cost of curing, stacking, and hand-picking
will not be far from $700, fully $200 of which has been expended in securing pure and
perfectly cured seed for ourselves and others willing to pay the extra price. To
thrash and prepare the seed for market the seed will cost about 6 cents per bushel
additional. I estimate that we shall get for our seed crop $7,000 net. There will be
left of seed tops, after thrashing, fully 100 tons. These are good for feed or fuel.

SIRUPS.

The bulk of our sirups are stored in the largo cistern or cellar under the warehouse.
The amount on hand wo estimate at 50,000 gallons. This includes the whole crop,
, except the 3,157 gallons sold in early part of season. Of this we have sold, to be
delivered within thirty days, and one car-load of which has already gone, 250 barrels,
or about 12,500 gallons, at a price that will net us here 20 cents. This sale includes
the bulk of our poorest sirups. I think we can safely estimate our sirup product,
exclusive of packages, at $10,000. Considering the condition of our factory for work
in cold weather, and the limited capacity of our centrifugal machinery, I recommend
their sale, without boiling, for seconds.

30

SUGAR.

Of our sugar product, the Staoe inspector, Prof, E. B. Cowgill, lias weighed and
certified for State bounty 206,326 pounds. We have now in addition and ready for
inspection 22,500 pounds. The centrifugals are still running. We estimate that we
shall still have, exclusive of seconds, from 7,000 to 10,000 pounds, or, in all, 235,826
pounds. This, at 5f cents, present price to jobbers, will produce us $13,559.98. To
this add the State bounty of 2 cents per pound, and we have for onr total sugar
product $17,276.50.

TOTAL PRODUCT OF THE SEASON.

'Sugar, 235,826 pounds, at 5f cents $13,559.96

Sugar, State bounty, at 2 cents 4,716.52

17, 276. 50

Sirups, 51,000 gallons (estimated), at 20 cents 10, 200. 00

Seed (estimated) • ~ 7,000.00

Value of total produc t ... 34,476.50

TOTAL COST.

Cane, 3,840 tons, at $2 7,680.00

Seed, 967 tons, at $2 - 1,934.00

9, 614, 00
Labor bill from August 15 to October 15, including labor for Department

experiments 5, 737. 16

Coal, including all experiments 1, 395. 77

Salaries, etc • 3,500.00

Insurance, sundries, etc , 1,500.00

Total.. 21,746.93

Total value , 34,476.50

Total cost 21,246.93

Net 13,229.57

Of the above labor bill, there has been paid—

By the Department 2, 575. 21

By the company 3, 161. 79

Of the above coal bill, there has been paid—

By the Department 324.00

By the company 1,071.77

Of the above cane account, there has been paid —

By the Department 324.00

By the company 9,290.00

Or, of the above expenditures the Department has paid $3,234.75. Bills are now
pending for $3,300, making in all $6.534.75, reducing our total cost from $21,746.93 to
$15,212.18, and leaving a profit from the season's work of $19,764.32. It will thus be
seen that in the working of the crop, including cane for experimental purposes, the
Department of Agriculture has paid or been charged with $6,534.75. This includes

* The amount of sugar branded was 234,607 pounds. The number of cells full of
cane from which the juice was boiled for sugar was 2,501, according to the record of
the sugar-boiler. — E. B. C,

31

the labor for the various experiments, the changing and erection of new machinery
for the trial of the same, and the salaries and wages of most of the high-priced help,
and which, in the practical operation of a factory, will not be required.
Respectfully submitted.

W. L. PARKINSON,

Manager.
FORT SCOTT, KANS., October 2$, 1887.

OUTLINE OF THE PROCESSES OF SUGAR-MAKING.

As now developed, the processes of making .sugar from sorglmm are
as follows :

First, The topped cane is delivered at the factory by the farmers who
grow it.

Second, The cane is cut by a machine into pieces about 1J inches long.

Third, The leaves and sheaths are separated from the cut cane by fan-
ning mills.

Fourth, The cleaned cane is cut into fine bits called chips.

Fifth, The chips are placed in iron tanks, and the sugar "diffused" —
soaked out with hot water.

Sixth, The juice obtained by diffusion has its acids nearly or quite
neutralized with milk of lime, and is heated and skimmed.

Seventh, The defecated or clarified juice is boiled to a semi-sirup in
vacuum pans.

Eighth, The semi-sirup is boiled u to grain" in a high vacuum in the
"strike-pan."

Ninth, The mixture of sugar and molasses from the strike-pan is
passed through a mixing machine into centrifugal machines, which
throw out the molasses and retain the sugar.

DETAILS OF THE PROCESSES OF SUGAR-MAKING.

An account of the processes of sugar-making ought doubtless to be-
gin with the planting and cultivation, growth and ripening, of the cane,
for it is here that the sugar is made. No known processes of science
or art, save those of plant growth, produce the peculiar combination of
carbon with the elements of water which we call sugar. Not only is
this true, but the chemist utterly fails in every attempt to so modify
existing similar combinations of these elements as to produce cane
sugar. It will be interesting here to note three substances of nearly
the same composition, viz : Starch, sucrose or cane sugar, and glucose
or grape sugar. Their compositions are much alike, and may be stated
as follows :

Carbon.

Water.

Starch *

12

10

Cane su ^ar

12

11

12

12

* The chemical formulas for these compounds are : Starch, CeHioOs ; cane sugar, Ci2H:aOn ; grape
siifiar, CeHisOe; in which C represents an equivalent of carbon, H of hydrogen, and Oof oxygen, or
H?0 an equivalent of water,

32

The chemist produces glucose, or grape sugar, from either starch or
sugar by treatment with acid, but all attempts have failed to produce
cane sugar from either starch or grape sugar.

THE FARMER THE REAL SUGAR-MAKER.

The farmer then, or perhaps more accurately the power which impels
the plant to select and combine in pjoper form and proportions the
three elements, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, is the real sugar-maker.
All after processes are merely devices for separating the sugar from the
other substances with which it grows.

HOW IS THE SUGAR FORMED IN THE CANE ?

The process of the formation of sugar in the cane is not fully deter-
mined ; but analyses of canes made at different stages of growth show
that the sap of growing cane contains a soluble substance having a
composition and giving reactions similar to starch. As maturity ap-
proaches, grape sugar is also found in the juice. A 'further advance
towards maturity discloses cane sugar with the other substances, and
at full maturity perfect canes contain much cane sugar and little grape
sugar and starchy matter.

In sweet fruits the change from grape sugar to cane sugar does not
take place, or takes place but sparingly. The grape sugar is ver}r sweet,
however.

INVERSION OR CHANGE OF CANE SUGAR INTO GRAPE SUGAR.

Cane sugar, called also sucrose or crystallizable sugar, when in dilute
solution, is changed very readily into grape sugar or glucose, a substance
which is much more difficult than cane sugar to crystallize. This
change, called inversion, takes place in overripe canes ; it sets in very
soon after cutting in any cane during warm weather; it occurs in cane
which has been injured by blowing down or by insects or by frost,
and it probably occurs in cane which takes a second growth after nearly
or quite reaching maturity.

Inversion will be further considered in another place.

THE FARMER'S PART MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL.

Since sugar is produced only by nature's processes of growth and is
easily lost through inversion, it is evident that the farmer's part in the
process of sugar- making is first and most important of all. It is a sub-
ject which invites most careful, scientific, and practical attention, and
will be further considered under the subject " Improving the cane."

It is apparent from what has already been said, that to insure a suc-
cessful outcome from the operations of the factory, the cane must be so
planted, cultivated, and matured as to make the sugar in its juice;

33

that it in ust be delivered to the factory very sooii after cutting; and that
it miiBt be taken care of before the season of heavy frosts.

THE WORK AT THE FACTORY.

TILE FIRST CUTTING.

The operations of the factory are illustrated in the large drawing, to
which the reader is referred in tracing the successive steps. The first
cutting is accomplished in the ensilage or feed-cutter. This cutter
is provided with three knives, fastened to the three spokes of a cast-
iron wheel, which makes about 250 revolutions per minute, carrying the
knives with a shearing motion past a dead knife. By a forced feed the
cane is so fed as to be cut into pieces about 1J inches long. Tins cut-
ting frees the leaves and nearly the entire sheaths from the pieces of
cane. By a suitable elevator the pieces of cane, leaves, and sheaths
are carried to the second floor.

THE CLEANING.

The elevator empties into a hopper, below which a series of four or
five fans is arranged one below the other. By passing down through
these fans the cane is separated from the lighter leaves much as grain is
separated from chaff. The leaves are blown away, and finally taken
from the building by an exhaust fan. This separation of the leaves
and other refuse is essential to the success of the sugar-making, for in
them the largest part of the coloring and other deleterious matters are
contained. If carried into the diffusion battery these matters are ex-
tracted (see reports of Chemical Division, U. S. Department of Agri-
culture), and go into the juice with the sugar. As already stated, the
process of manufacturing sugar is essentially one of separation. The
mechanical elimination of these deleterious substances at the outset at
once obviates the necessity of separating them later and by more diffi-
cult methods, and relieves the juice of their harmful influences. From
the fans the pieces of cane are delivered by a screw carrier to an ele-
vator, which discharges into

THE FINAL CUTTING-MACHINE.

on the third floor. This machine consists of an 8-inch cast-iron cylinder
with knives like those of a planing-machine. It is really three cylin-
ders placed end to end on the same shaft, making the entire length 18
inches. The knives are inserted in slots and held in place with set-
screws. The cylinder revolves at the rate of about 1,200 per minute,
carrying the knives past an iron dead knife, which is set so close that
no cane can pass without being cut into tine chips, From this cutter
the chips of cane are taken by an elevator an.4 a conveyor to the cells
Of the diffusion battery, The conveyor passes above and at owe sjtle of
17 3

34

•

the battery, and is provided with an opening and a spout opposite each
cell of the battery. The openings are closed at pleasure by a slide. A
movable spout completes the connection with any cell which it is desired
to fill with chips.

WHAT IS DIFFUSION ?

The condition in which the sugars and other soluble substances exist
in the cane is that of solution in water. This sweetish liquid is con-
tained, like the juices of plants generally, in cells. The walls of these
cells are porous. It has long been known that if a solution of sugar in
water be placed in a porous or membranous sack and the sack placed
in water, an action called osmose takes place, whereby the water from
the outside and the sugar solution from the inside of the sack each pass
through until the liquids on the two sides of the membrane are equally
sweet. Other substances soluble in water behave similarly, but sugar
and other readily crystallizable substances pass through much more
readily than uncrystallizable or difficultly crystallizable bodies. To ap-
ply this property to the extraction of sugar the cane is first cut into fine
chips, as already described, and put into the diffusion cells, where water
is applied and the sugar is displaced.

WHAT HAS TAKEN PLACE IN THE DIFFUSION CELLS.

For the purpose of illustration, let us assume that when a cell has
been filled with chips just as much water is passed into the cell as there
was juice in the chips. The process of osmose or diffusion sets in, and
in a few minutes there is as much sugar in the liquid outside of the cane
cells as in the juice in these cane cells; i. e., the water and the juice
have divided the sugar, each taking half. Again, assume that as much
liquid can be drawn from one as there was water added. It is plain
that if the osmotic action is complete the liquid drawn off will be half
as sweet as cane juice. It has now reached fresh chips in two, and
again equalization takes place. Half of the sugar from one was brought
into two, so that it now contains 1J portions of sugar, dissolved in 2
portions of liquid, or the liquid has risen to f of the strength of cane
juice. This liquid having f strength passes to three, and we have in
three 1 J portions of liquid, or after the action has taken place the liquid
in three is J- strength. One portion of this liquid passes to four, and
we have 1J- portions of sugar in 2 portions of liquid, or the liquid be-
comes |f strength. One portion of this liquid passes to five, and we
have in five 1}| portions of sugar in 2 portions of liquid, or the liquid
is f I strength. It is now called juice, and is drawn off and subjected
to the processes of the subsequent operations of the factory. From this
time forward a cell is drawn for every one filled.

35

a

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3

4

5

G

7

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18

14

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Throughout the operatioii the temperature is kept as near the boil-
ing point as can be done conveniently without danger of filling some of
the battery cells with steam. Diffusion takes place more rapidly at
high than at low temperatures, and the danger of fermentation, with
the consequent loss of sugar, is avoided. The process will be readily
understood from the above diagram, in. which the columns represent
the cells of the battery, the numbers at the left the number of diffusions ;
iv, water; J, liquid in the cells, or passing through them, and J, juice to
be drawn.

INVERSION OP SUGAR IN THE DIFFUSION CELLS.

In the experiments at Fort Scott in 1886 much difficulty was experi-
enced on account of inversion of the sugar in the diffusion battery. The
report shows that this resulted from the use of soured cane and from
delays in the operation of the battery on account of the imperfect work-
ing of the cutting and elevating machinery, much of which was then
experimental. Under the circumstances, however, it became a matter
of the gravest importance to find a method of preventing this inversion
without in any manner interfering with the other processes. On the
suggestion of Professor Swenson a portion of freshly precipitated car-
bonate of lime was placed with the chips in each cell. In the case of
soured cane this took up the acid which otherwise produced inversion.
In case no harmful acids were present this chalk was entirely inactive.
Soured canes are not desirable to work under any circumstances, and
should be rejected by the chemist and not allowed to enter the factory.
So, also, delays on account of imperfect machinery are disastrous to
profitable manufacturing and must be avoided, But for those who 4e,<

36

sire to experiment with deteriorated canes and untried cutting-machines,
the addition of the .calcium carbonate provides against disastrous re-
sults which would otherwise be inevitable.

CLARIFYING OR DEFECATING THE JUICE.

Immediately after it is drawn from the diffusion battery the juice is
taken from the measuring tanks into the defecating tanks or pans. These
are large, deep vessels, provided with copper steam coils in the bottom
for the purpose of heating the juice. Sufficient milk of lime is added
here to nearly or quite neutralize the acids in the juice, the test being
made with litmus paper. The juice is brought to the boiling point, and
as much of the scum is removed as can be taken quickly. The scum is
returned to the diffusion cells, and the juice is sent by a pump to the
top of the building, where it is boiled and thoroughly skimmed. These
skimmings are also returned to the diffusion cells.

This method of disposing of the skimmings was suggested by Mr.
Parkinson. It is better than the old plan of throwing them away to
decompose and create a stench about the factory. Probably a better
method would be to pass these skimmings through some sort of filter,
or perhaps better still, to filter the juice and avoid all skimming. After
this last skimming the juice is ready to be boiled down to a thin sirup,
in

THE DOUBLE-EFFECT EVAPORATORS.

These consist of two large closed pans provided within with steam
pipes of copper, whereby the liquid is heated. They are also connected
with each other and with pumps in such a way as to reduce the press-
ure in the first to about three- fifths and in the second to about one-
fifth the normal atmospheric pressure.

The juice boils rapidly in the first at somewhat below the temperature
of boiling water, and in the second at a still lower temperature. The
exhaust steam from the engines is used for heating the first pan, and
the vapor from the boiling juice in the first pan is hot enough to do all
the boiling in the second, and is taken into the copper pipes of the sec-
ond for this purpose. In this way the evaporation is effected without
so great expenditure of fuel as is necessary in open pans, or in single-
effect vacuum pans, and the deleterious influences of long continued
high temperature on the crystallizing powers of the sugar are avoided.

From the double effects the sirup is stored in tanks ready to be taken
into the strike-pan, where the sugar is crystallized.

THE FIRST CHANCE TO PAUSE.

At this point the juice has just reached a condition in which it will
keep. From the moment the cane is cut in the fields until now every
delay is liable to entail loss of sugar by inversion. After the water is
put into the cells of the battery with the chips, the temperature is care-

37

fully kept above that at which icrnuMitation takes place most readily,
and the danger of inversion is thereby reduced. But with all the pre-
cautions known to science up to this point the utmost celerity is neces-
sary to secure the best results. There is here, however, a natural divis-
ion in the process of sugar-making, which will be further considered
under the heading of "auxiliary factories." Any part of the process
heretofore described may be learned in a few days by workmen of intel-
ligence and observation who will give careful attention to their respect-
ive duties.

BOILING TUB SIRUP TO GHAIX THE SUGAR.

This operation is the next in course, and is performed in what is
known at the sugar factory as the strike-pan, a large air-tight vessel
from which the air and vapor are almost exhausted by means of a suit-
able pump and condensing apparatus. As is the case with the saccha-
rine juices of other plants, the sugar from sorghum crystallizes most
readily at medium temperature. There are two ways of proceeding.
The simplest is to boil the sirup in the vacuum pan until it has reached
about the density at which crystallization begins, then draw it off into
suitable vessels and set it away in a hot room (about 110° to 120° F.) to
crystallize slowly. The proper density is usually judged by the boiler,
by observing the length to which a sample of the hot liquid from the
pan can be drawn. This is called the u string proof" test. A far bet-
ter method is to li boil to grain " in the pan. This is better because it
gives the operator control of the size of the grain within certain limits,
because it gives a better appearing sugar, and more important still, be-
cause with proper skill it gives a better yield. Several descriptions of
this delicate operation have been published. After reading some of the
best of these, the writer found, on attempting to boil to grain, that more
definite instruction was necessary; and after obtaining the instruction
it became apparent that while almost any one can learn to " boil to
grain," yet to obtain the best yield requires personal skill and powers
of observation and comparison which will be obtained in widely differ-
ent degrees by different persons. To become a good sugar-boiler, one
must be an enthusiastic specialist. The Parkinson Sugar Company
were fortunate in securing for this important work the services of Mr.
Frederick Hinze, a native of Hanover, Germany, and a graduate of the
"Sugar Industry School" at Braunschweig. Though a young man,
Mr. Hinze has had a large experience, having assisted his brother in
the erection and operation of sugar factories in German}-, and since com-
ing to America having worked in the beet sugar factory at Alvarado,
Cal., and in cane-sugar factories in Louisiana and in Cuba. Since the
close of the working season at Fort Scott, Mr. Hinze has again gone to
Louisiana and taken charge of a strike-pan at the sugar house of Kx-
Governor Warmoth, where he worked last season.

The process of boiling to grain may be described as foHows : A por-
tion of the sirup is taken into the pan, and boiled rapidly in vacua to

38

the crystallizing density. If in a sirup the molecules of sugar are
brought sufficiently near to each other through concentration— the re-
moval of the dissolving liquid— these molecules attract each other so
strongly as to overcome the separating power of the solvent, and they
unite to form crystals. Sugar is much more soluble at high than at
low temperatures, the heat acting in this as in almost all cases as a re-
pulsive force among the molecules. It is therefore necessary to main-
tain a high vacuum in order to boil at a low pressure, in boiling to grain.
When the proper density is reached, the crystals sometimes fail to ap-
pear, and a fresh portion of cold sirup is allowed to enter the pan.
This must not be sufficient in amount to reduce the density of the con-
tents of the pan below that at which crystallization may take place.
This cold sirup causes a sudden though slight reduction of tempera-
ture, which may so reduce the repulsive forces as to allow the attraction
among the molecules to prevail, resulting in the inception of crystalliza-
tion. To discover this requires the keenest observation. When begin-
ning to form, the crystals are too minute to show either form or size,
even when viewed through a strong magnifying glass. There is to be
seen simply a very delicate cloud. The inexperienced observer would
entirely overlook this cloud, his attention probably being directed to
some curious globular and annular objects, which I have nowhere seen
explained. Very soon after the sample from the pan is placed upon
glass for observation the surface becomes cooled and somewhat hard-
ened. As the cooling proceeds below the surface contraction ensues,
and consequently a wrinkling of the surface, causing a shimmer of the
light in a very attractive manner. This, too, is likely to attract more
attention than the delicate, thin cloud of crystals, and may be even con-
founded with the reflection and refraction of light, by which alone the
minute crystals are determined. The practical operator learns to dis-
regard all other attractions, and to look for the cloud and its peculiari-
ties. When the contents of the pan have again reached the proper
density another portion of sirup is added. The sugar which this con-
tains is attracted to the crystals already formed, and goes to enlarge
these rather than to form new crystals, provided the firs.t are sufficiently
numerous to receive the sugar as rapidly as it can crystallize.

The contents of the pan are repeatedly brought to the proper density,
and fresh sirup added, as above described, until the desired size of
grain is obtained, or until the pan is full. Good management should
bring about these two conditions at the same time. If a sufficient num-
ber of crystals has not been started at the beginning of the operation to
receive the sugar from the sirup added, a fresh crop of crystals will
be started at such time as the crystallization becomes too rapid to be
accommodated on the surfaces of the grain already formed. The older
and larger crystals grow more rapidly, by reason of their greater at-
tractive forc^e, than the newer and smaller ones on succeeding addi-
tions of sirup, so that the disparity in size will increase as the work

39

proceeds. This condition is by all means to be avoided, since it entails
serious difficulties on the process of separating the sugar from the
molasses. In case tbis second crop of crystals, called u false grain" or
"mush sugar," has appeared, the sugar boiler must act upon his
judgment, guided by his experience, as to what is to be done. lie may
take enough thin sirup into the pan to dissolve all of the crystals, and
begin again, or, if very skillful, he may so force the growth of the false
grain as to bring it up to a size that can be worked.

No attempt will be made here to describe the methods of " boiling
for yield," nor to point out the methods by which many special diffi-
culties are to be overcome. Not only does the limited experience of the
writer make him hesitate to enter upon these intricate subjects, but
their discussion would unduly extend this report. It may be remarked
that the handling of the cane, the treatment of the juice, and the prep-
aration of the sirup, have much to do with the difficulties and success
of this the most intricate of all.

THE FIXAL SEPARATION OF THE SUGAR FROM THE MOLASSES.

The completion of the work in the strike pan leaves the sugar mixed
with molasses. The mixture is called melada or masse culto. It may be
drawn off into iron sugar wagons and set in the hot room above men-
tioned, in which case still more of the sugar which remains in the un-
crystallized state generally joins the crystals, somewhat increasing the
yield of " first sugar." At the proper time these sugar wagons are
emptied into a mixing machine, where the mass is brought to a uni-
form consistency. If the sugar wagons are not used, the strike-pan is
emptied directly into the mixer.

THE CENTRIFUGAL MACHINES.

From the mixer the melada is drawn into the centrifugal machines.
These consist, first, of an iron case resembling in form the husk of mill-
stones. A spout at the bottom of the husk connects with a molasses
tank. Witbin this husk is placed a metallic vessel with perforated
sides. This vessel is cither mounted or hung on a vertical axis, and is
lined with wire cloth. Having taken a proper portion of the mchida
into the centrifugal, the operator starts it to revolving, and by means
of a friction clutch makes such connection with the engine as gives it
about 1,500 revolutions per minute. The centrifugal force developed
drives the liquid molasses through the meshes of the wire cloth, and
out against the husk, from which it flows off into>a tank. The sugar,
being solid, is retained by the wire cloth. If there is in the melada
the u false grain" already mentioned, it passes into the meshes of the
wire cloth, and prevents the passage of the molasses. After the mo-
lasses has been nearly all thrown out, a small quantity of water is
sprayed over the sugar while the centrifugal is m motion. This is
forced through the sugar, and curries with it much of the molasses

40

which would otherwise adhero to the sugar, and discolor it. If the
sugar is to be refined, this washing with water is omitted. When the
sugar has been sufficiently dried, the machine is stopped, the sugar taken
out, and put into barrels for market.

Simple as the operation of the centrifugals is, the direction of the
sugar-boiler as to the special treatment of each strike is necessary,
since he, better than any one else, knows what difficulties are to be ex-
pected on account of the condition in which the melada left the strike-
pan .

CAPACITY OF THE SUGAR FACTORY.

It has already been shown that the operation of the diffusion battery
should be continuous. The experience so far had in diffusing sorghum
indicates eight minutes as the proper time for filling a cell; or one cell
should be filled and another emptied every eight minutes. This, with
a battery of twelve cells, nine of which are under pressure, gives seventy-
two minutes as the time during which the chips are subject to the action
of the water. If the chips are cut sufficiently fine, the time may be re-
duced to seven or even to six minutes to the cell without probable loss
from poor extraction. The time may be extended to ten minutes per
cell without danger of damage when working sound canes.

Taking eight minutes as the mean, we shall have one hundred and
eighty as the number of cells diffused in a day. To secure the best re-
sults, all other parts of the factory must be adjusted to work as rapidly
as the diffusion battery, so that the capacity of the battery will deter-
mine the capacity of the factory.

A plant having a battery like that at Fort Scott, in which the cells
are each capable of containing a ton of cane chips, should then have a
capacity of 180 tons of cleaned cane, or 200 tons of cane with leaves, or
240 tons of cane as it grows in the field, per day of twenty-four hours.
Those who have given most attention to the subject think that a bat-
tery composed of IJ-ton cells may be operated quite as successfully as
a battery of 1-toii cells. Such a battery would have a capacity of 360
tons of field cane per day.

SIMPLIFICATION OF THE DIFFUSION BATTERY.

The diffusion battery as used at the Parkinson factory is an intricate
and expensive apparatus, and yet it is simple as compared with those
first used in Germany and France. The Germans have, however, within
a few years constructed batteries even simpler than that at Fort Scott.
An apparatus has even been constructed composed of a single vessel
through which the water passes in one direction while the chips are
moved slowly in the other by a screw conveyor. The batteries which
will be used in this country, however, will doubtless be constructed on
the general plan of that used at Fort Scott, with such modifications as
will cheapen the construction and reduce the labor of operating.

41

THE CUTTING AND CLEANING APPARATUS.

This consists of modifications of appliances which have long been
used for other purposes. Simple as it is, and presenting only mechan-
ical problems, the cutting, cleaning, and elevating apparatus is likely
to be the source of more delays and perplexities in the operation of the
sugar factory than any other part.

The diffusion battery in good hands works perfectly; the clarification
of the juice causes no delays; the concentration to the condition of
semi-sirup may be readily, rapidly, and surely effected in apparatus
which has been brought to great perfection by long experience, and in
many forms; the work at the strike-pan requires only to be placed in
the hands of an expert ; the mixer never fails to do its duty. There
are various forms of centrifugal machines on the market, some of which
are nearly perfect. If, then, the mechanical work of delivering, cutting,
cleaning, and elevating the cane can be accomplished with regularity
and rapidity, the operation of a well-adjusted sugar factory should pro-
ceed without interruption or delay from Monday morning to Saturday
night.

The machines used at Fort Scott for these purposes have not been
described in detail. They need only to be made stronger and simpler.
Their general plan is not far from that which is likely to be in general
use in the near future.

The methods of handling cane need some modifications as to details.
The arrangement for making the factory engine unload the cane from
the farmers' wagons will probably never be abandoned, since it is much
more rapid and leaves the cane in better shape than it can be left by
hand.

THE SCIENTIFIC WORK.

The present favorable condition of the sorghum-sugar industry, like
the immense development of the beet-sugar industry of Europe, is in-
debted for its existence largely to long-continued scientific work ; and
while much of the scientific manipulation which it was once feared would
be necessary to success has been eliminated in practice, yet the scientist
has not been able to so far simplify the subject as to enable the manu-
facturer to dispense with his services. I shall try here to make a plain
statement of the scientific work necessary in a sugar factory under de-
velopments so far made.

WHERE THE SCIENTIFIC WORK IS NEEDED.

It has already been shown that it is only on reaching maturity that
sorghum is a profitable sugar plant. To determine when most farm
products are ripe is a simple matter of inspection. But it is astonish-
ing to note how greatly different will be the views of, say, a dozen prac-
tical farmers as to when a given field of wheat is ripe. Experience in
judging of the ripeness of sorghum is far less extended than in the case

42

of wheat. Indeed, the varying conditions of the weather so greatly
affect the appearance of ripeness, i. c., the hardness of the seed, the con-
dition of the leaves, etc., that the manufacturer, who must know before
he uses cane whether it is ripe or green, is left no other than the test of
chemical analysis. This determines the one point of interest to him,
namely, whether the cane has reached such a degree of maturity as to
have made its sugar.

Again, although the cane may have reached full maturity, if it shall
have been cut and exposed to the atmospheric influences of the earlier
part of the season for any considerable time, the sugar may have been
changed to glucose. In moist weather this change may take place with-
out any accompanying change in the appearance of the cane. A notable
instance illustrating this kind of depreciation occurred at the Parkinson
works during the season just closed. A farmer brought in a sample of
excellent-looking cane. The book-keeper, who has had considerable
experience about sugar factories, examined it, and after ascertaining
by the hydrometer that the juice contained aboufc 13 per cent, of dis-
solved solids, was about to direct the farmer to bring in the cane.
An analysis showed that about 8 of this 13 per cent, was glucose, 3 per
cent, sugar, and 2 per cent, other substances not more valuable than
glucose. Inquiry disclosed the fact that the cane had been cut for
three days. The weather had been moist, so that no change in ap-
pearance had taken place. To have worked such cane for sugar would
have been worse than useless, since the glucose and other substances
its juice contained would have held from crystallization not only the 3
per cent, of sugar which this cane contained, but a considerable amount
more had it been worked with better juice.

Instances might be multiplied to show the perplexities and disap.
pointments which are liable to result unless a most careful supervision
be had of the condition of the cane when it enters the factory. Cer-
tainly no field of cane should be cut until the development of its su-
gar has been reached and determined by the best means available.

In the early part of the season, while the weather is warm, all cane
cut in the forenoon should be worked the same day, and that cut
in the afternoon should be worked by noon the next day. During the
cooler weather of the latter part of the season it is not necessary to be
quite so prompt. The delays which will be admissible can be deter-
mined by analysis of the cane.

Not only is it necessary to know that the cane enters the factory with
its sugar intact, but it is important to see that it does not suffer inver-
sion during the process of manufacture. To prevent this all delays must
be avoided. The cane must go promptly and regularly through the cut-
ters and cleaners as rapidly as it can be thoroughly diffused. In a pile
of cane chips inversion of the sugar very soon begins^ and is soon fol-
lowed, if not accompanied, by acetic fermentation. If acetic or other
active acid be present in the diffusion cells it causes rapid inversion of

43

the sugar under the high temperature of the battery. After leaving
the battery the treatment of the juice must be prompt to guard against
inversion. Indeed, as has been remarked above, every part of the fac-
tory in which the work is done until the juice has been reduced to a
sirup should be of such a capacity that it can surely do its work at all
times as rapidly as the battery can bo operated. It is a matter of great
importance to the manufacturer to know whether, at any stage of the
process, inversion is taking place. To determine this the analysis of
average samples of freshly-cut chips may be compared with analysis of
the product at other stages. For example: To determine whether in-
version is taking place in the battery, crush out and analyze the juice
from samples of chips as they enter; then analyze samples of the diffu-
sion juice as it comes from the Battery. If the relation of sugar to
glucose is the same in these analyses it may be concluded that no in-
version is taking place. If, however, the proportion of sugar to glucose
is smaller in the diffusion juice than in that obtained directly from the
chips by crushing, inversion is probably taking place, and its cause
must be sought and remedied.

The subsequent processes of manufacture give little occasion for in-
version, unless from delay before the juice has been reduced to sirup.
The safest plan is to not let it cool until it is ready for the strike-pan.
If unavoidable delays lead to a suspicion that inversion may have taken
place, the matter may be determined by analysis. Inversion is not the
only cause of loss to be guarded against in the battery. As shown by
the report of the chemist of the United States Department of Agricult-
ure, the average extraction of the battery at the Parkinson factory
this season was 92.04 per cent, of all the sugars the cane contained.
A closer average extraction than 95 percent, is scarcely to be expected,
and an extraction of less than 90 per cent, should be considered inad-
missible. Poor extraction may result from overhurryiug the battery,
from allowing the temperature to run too low, from raising the tem-
perature too highly, thereby filling the upper parts of the cells with
steam instead of water, or from improper manipulation of the valves,
or from failure of the cutting machines to properly prepare the chips.
The perfection of the extraction may be determined by analysis of the
exhausted chips from the battery, and if not found satisfactory, the
cause is of course to be sought out and remedied.

It is desirable for the manufacturer to know how much sugar he is
leaving in the molasses, and also how much molasses ho* is leaving in
the sugar ; i. e., the purity of the sugar. These points are readily deter-
mined by analysis.

WHO CAN DO THIS SCIENTIFIC WORK?

It is doubtless desirable, though not essential, that the superintend-
ent of a sugar factory be also a chemist. The analyses indicated in the
above pages are not intricate. To make them all, however, will require

44

considerable time, and whether the superintendent be capable or inca-
pable of making- them, he will scarcely be able to spare the time which
ought to be devoted to them.

Any of the graduates of our agricultural or other colleges who have
taken a good course of chemistry, with laboratory practice, can by a
few mouths' special training in sugar chemistry and practice in sugar
analysis become entirely competent to do the work required in the or-
dinary operation of a factory, under the direction of the superintendent.

HOW TO MAKE THE ANALYSES NECESSARY IN THE SUGAR FACTORY.

It is hoped that the following discussion of the methods of making
sugar analyses will be of interest to some who may engage in such
work, and throw some light on the subject for the general reader. For
fuller discussions of the subject, the reader is referred to Tucker's
Sugar Analysis, and the bulletins of the Chemical Division, U". S. De-
partment of Agriculture.

It is well to remember here, that on account of the sugar and other
substances dissolved in it cane juice is denser than water. Thus, if 9
pounds of water and 1 pound of sugar be mixed together the water will
dissolve the sugar, and any given volume of the mixture, say a pint, will
weigh one and four-hundredths times as much as a pint of water. ' Take
another illustration : A gallon of water weighs about 8J pounds, while
a gallon of the above supposed sugar solution weighs about 8| pounds.
If a sugar solution be made, containing 20 per cent, of its weight in
sugar, a gallon of it will weigh about 9 pounds. A gallon of a solution
of equal parts by weight of sugar and water weighs about 10J pounds,
and sirups containing three parts sugar to one of water weigh about
11J pounds to the gallon.

THE HYDROMETER OR SACCHARIMETER.

Instruments called hydrometers or saccharimeters have been made
for determining the relative amounts of sugar and water in solutions.
These would be sufficiently accurate for the purposes of the manufact-
urer if the juice contained nothing but cane sugar and water ; but the
grape sugar and other substances contained in the juice increase the
density in about the same proportion as i t is increased by the cane sugar.
While, therefore, the hydrometer is of use in determining the amount
of solid matter contained in the juice, and may be used in some cases,
as in determining the degree of extraction, etc., it does not determine
the relative proportions of the substances present.

TWO METHODS OF ANALYSIS.

Two methods of determining the percentage of cane sugar in a sample
of juice are available. These are the chemical and the optical. By the

45

first may be determined the percentages of, first, cane sugar ; second,
grape sugar, otherwise called glucose; third, " not sugar; " fourth, water;
constituting the juice. By the second method, the cane sugar alone is
determined. The optical method is, however, conveniently used in con-
nection with the chemical, in making complete analyses. One of the
chemical methods will be considered first. I shall go as little as possi-
ble into teclmicality'here.

FEHLING'S SOLUTION OF COPPER.

This is the principal reagent used in the chemical methods of analy-
sis. There arc several modifications of it. Perhaps none of these is
better than Violette's solution : *

34.64 grams pure crystallized copper sulphate.

184.00 grams tartrate soda and potash (Rochelle salt).
78.00 grams caustic soda.

The copper salt is to be dissolved in 140 cubic centimeters of distilled
water, slowly added to a solution of the tartrate and caustic soda, and
the .whole made up to 1 liter at standard temperature (17£° Centigrade ;
63 J° Fahrenheit). This should be a clear blue solution,

THE GRAPE-SUGAR TEST.

If now a portion of this copper solution be brought to a boil, and to
it be added a solution containing grape sugar, the blue color will be
changed through various shades of purple to crimson, and finally to
scarlet. The reaction has reached the decisive stage when the color is
crimson. On standing, the crimson precipitate settles to the bottom of
the vessel. This is the reaction for the determination of grape sugar.
If a definite quantity, say 10 cc., of the copper solution be used in the
above experiment, a definite quantity of grape sugar, .05 grams, will
have to be added to perfect the reaction. Now by noting the amount
of sample added to complete the reaction, the determination of the per-
centage of grape sugar from the experimental data becomes a mere
matter of arithmetic. Thus, if 4 grams of the sample had been added
to produce the complete reaction, we should have known that those 4
grams of sample contained fi ve-hundredths of a gram of grape sugar.
.05 -f- 4 =.0125, or 1J per cent, of grape sugar.

THE CA]NE SUGAR TEST.

Cane sugar has no such effect on the copper solution. It has been
remarked already that cane sugar changes very readily into grape
sugar. This change is easily produced by boiling the solution of cane
sugar; for example, the cane jtiice with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric
acid. The cane juice will now contain the grape sugar it originally con-
TI i«-k era Sugar Aualyais, p, 186,

46
v,

tamed, and in addition that which resulted from the inversion of the
cane sugar. It now only remains to nearly neutralize the acid in the
solution, cool it, and execute the test and calculations for grape sugar
as before. Subtracting the percentage of grape sugar originally found
from that shown by the last determination gives the percentage of
grape sugar resulting from the inversion of the cane sugar. The per-
centage of cane sugar is .95 of the grape sugar produced by inversion
of the cane sugar. The soluble solids "not sugar " contained in the
juice may be estimated by subtracting the sum of the percentages ol
the two sugars from the entire percentage of soluble solids as deter-
mined by the hydrometer.

THE OPTICAL METHOD.

The optical method of determining the percentage of cane sugar de-
pends upon the fact that a beam ofrpolarized light is rotated to the right
in passing through a solution of this sugar. While the apparatus for
executing this test is expensive and the explanation intricate, the
manipulation is simple and rapid and the results satisfactory ; so that
it is probable that all well-regulated sugar factories will be provided
with these instruments.

For many of the purposes of the factory the determinations of the
percentage of cane sugar is all that is required. The analyst will prob-
ably be able to make forty or fifty of these determinations per day by
the optical method, if so many are required.

THE FURTHER SCIENTIFIC WORK.

The money, skill, and knowledge which have during the last few years
been expended upon the sorghum plant have made available a new in-
dustry. The possibilities of this new industry can be fully understood
only on more fully considering some of the facts which chemical science
has made known.

The analyses made at the Parkinson Sugar Works during the season
of 1887 by Dr. C. A. Orampton and Mr. Norman J. Fake, chemists of
the U. S. Department of Agriculture, are of great value in this connec-
tion, and when supplemented by the further work now in progress in
the laboratories of the Department at Washington will become a basis
for future work.

In tables of analyses the percentages given are usually computed on
the weight of the juice contained in the cane. Those who are familiar
with the habit of the plant will readily see that the cane may be con-
sidered in three parts, viz: (1) The tops, including the seed and 12 to
18 inches of the upper part of the stalk; (2) the leaves, including the
leaf sheaths; (3) the body of the cane after the tops and leaves have
been removed. This body of the £ai}e contains nearly all of the juice,
and practically all of the sugar.

47

A ton of sorghum as it grows is composed of these three parts in
about the following average proportions :

Topped and cleaned cane pounds.. 1,500

Tops do 300

Leaves and sheaths do 200

Total .-. 2, 000

The juice constitutes about 90 per cent, of the topped and cleaned
cane. Analytical estimates and the estimates of the sugar factory are
based on the ton of topped and cleaned cane. In order to place the
matter clearly before the reader, and at the same time to compare the
amount of sugar contained in Louisiana cane with that contained in
sorghum, and to make other studies of the subject, I have computed
from the analytical tables of the United States Department of Agri-
culture the weights of " cane sugar," "grape sugar," and soluble solids
" not sugar," found to exist in the ton of topped and cleaned sorghum
for the years 1883-'87, and in the ton of cleaned Louisiana cane for
the years 18S4->86.

" Cane sugar," "grape sugar," and soluble solids " not sugar" contained in a ton of cleaned
sorghum and cleaned Louisiana cane.

[Computed from the analytical tables of the United States Department of Agriculture, the weight of
juice being assumed at 1,800 pounds per toil in either cane.]

Constituents. „

1883.

1884.

1885.

1886.

1887.

Means.

Sorghum.

Louisiana
cane.*

I

Louisiana
cane.

Sorghum.

Louisiana
cane.

• a
2

f

72

Louisiana
cane.

Sorghum.

Louisiana
cane.*

Sorghum.

Louisiana
cane.

Cane sugar
Grape su ""ar

Lbs.
162. 70
73.44

Lbs.

Lbs.
264. 90
22. 32

Lbs.
227. 00
15.66

Lbs.
177. 48
50.00

Lbs.
220. 00
18.00

Lbs.
188. 82
62. 00

Lbs.
243. 00
11.00

Lbs.
171.80
60.00

Lbs.

Lbs.
193. 10
53.55

246. 65
49.97

Lbs.
230. 00
14.89

Total sugars

236. 14
30 4°

287. 22
64.44

242. 66

47.88

227. 48
50.00

238. 00
44.00

250. 82
55.00

254. 00
37.60

231.80
50.00

244. 89
43.16

Not sugar

Total soluble solids

266. 56

361.64

290. 54

277. 48

282. 00

305. 82

291. 60

281.80

296. 62

288. 05

* No record.

tThe writer made a series of analyses of canes grown near Sterling, Kans., in 1884, taking the juice
as it came from the crusher iu the regular course of manufacture. The mean of these from the first
mill gave 222 12 pounds of sugar per ton of cane. In his report of the crop of 1884 Dr. Wiley says the
lam1 on which the cane analyzed by him and included in the above summary was grown had a top-
dressing of about 400 pounds of superphosphate per acre.

IMPROVING THE SEED.

The study of this table is most interesting. The first and most im-
portant observation is of the wide differences in the sorghum canes ex-
amined, there being a variation of 102.2 pounds of cane sugar per ton.
from 1883 to 1884. Every practical sugar-maker knows that the differ-
ence in the available sugar is greater than the actual difference shown
in these analyses. Again, the cane sugar contained in the sorghum of
exceeded that in the Louisiana cane of any year of the record,

48

If a naturalist were seeking a plant whose record indicated that it
would yield readily to the influences of cultivation, a plant which might
be changed in its characteristics, he would select one showing just such
extreme variations as this, Iv is doubtless necessary only to reproduce
the conditions, whatever they may have been, under which the crop of
1884 was produced to reproduce like results. These conditions may be
no more difficult to attain than those which produce the average crop.
This branch of the subject invites study and experiment. The oppor-
tunity doubtless exists to build up the sugar-producing properties of
sorghum-making improvements not inferior to those by which the Euro-
peans have made the sugar-beet a most valuable source of sugar.

In this connection, I can do no better than to produce and second the
remarks of Dr. Wiley, in his report for 1883, on Improvement by Seed
Selection.

I am fully convinced that the Government should undertake the experiments which
have in view the increase of the ratio of sucrose to other substances in the juice.
These experiments, to be valuable, must continue under proper scientific direction for
a number of years. Tho cost will be so great that a private citizen will hardly be
willing to undertake the expense.

The history of the improvement in the sugar beet should be sufficient to encourage
all similar eiforts with sorghum.

The original forage beet, from which the sugar beet has been developed, contained
only 5 or 6 per cent, of sucrose. The sugar beet now will average 10 per cent, of
sucrose. It seems to me that a few years of careful selection may secure a similar
improvement in sorghum.

It would be a long step toward the solution of the problem to secure a sorghum that
would average, field for field, 12 per cent, sucrose and only 2 per cent, of other sugars,
and with such cane the great difficulty would be to make sirup and not sugar. Those
varieties and individuals of each variety of cane which show the best analytical
results should be carefully selected for seed, and this selection continued until acci-
dental variations become hereditary qualities in harmouy with the well-knowa prin-
ciples of descent.

If these experiments in selection could he made in different parts of the country,
and especially by the various agricultural stations and colleges, they would have
additional value and force. In a country whose soil and climate are as diversified as
in this, results obtained in one locality are not always reliable for another.

If some unity of action could in this way be established among those-engaged in
agricultural research, much, time and labor would be saved and more valuable results
be obtained.

A VALUABLE CONTENT OF SORGHUM CANE.

The grape-sugar content of sorghum is very large. When freed from
such of the "not sugar" products as have an unpleasant taste, this con-
stitutes an elegant sirup constituent. It is composed chiefly of two
sugars, called, respectively, dextrose and levulose. The last is sweeter
than cane sugar. This grape sugar is that to which most sweet fruits
owe their sweetness, The large amount of it — over 53 pounds to the
ton of cane—is likely to be recognized in the near future a$ one of
most valuable contents of sorghum cane,

49

IMPERFECT SEPARATION.

At present we are able to separate only a portion of the cane sugar
from the other constituents of the juice. It is believed to be impossible
by methods at present used to separate more than the difference between
the cane sugar and the grape sugar. Thus the sorghum of 1883 could
have yielded not more than 162.7—73.44=89.26 pounds per ton, while
that of 1884 should, by the same computation have yielded 264.9—22.32
=242.58 pounds per ton. The available sugar in the sorghum crop of
1887, by the same method, was 171.8—60=111.8 pounds, and the av-
erage available sugar in the sorghum for the five years was 193.1—
53.55=139.55 pounds. This is supposing that the juice is all obtained
from the cane, and that there is no waste in the subsequent processes.
At Fort Scott, however, only a little more thin 92 per cent, of the sugar
was obtained from the cane, so that the above figures should be multi-
plied by .92, making the mean available sugar with this extraction 128.38
pounds, and the available sugar of 1887, 102.8 pounds per ton of cleaned
cane.

THE YIELD OBTAINED AT FORT SCOTT.

The actual yield obtained was 234,607 pounds of first sugar, from
2,501 cells. If, now, the cell be taken as a ton, the yield of first sugar
was 234,607-4-2,501 =93.8 pounds. Enough of the molasses was reboiled
fora second crop of crystals, and the sugar separated to ascertain that
15 to 20 pounds, per ton of cane represented, could be obtained. Call-
ing it 15, we have for the entire yield 93.8+15=108.8 pounds per ton of
cleaned cane. This is a larger yield than is obtainable according to the
heretofore accepted theory. There is some uncertainty about the weight
of a cell, which may account for the discrepancy between the theoretical
and the actual results. It is possible, however, that the theory may
need reconstruction. In any case the yield actually obtained is most
gratifying.

I have made no mention in the above of the exceptionally large yields
of some special strikes made during the season. One strike gave 109
pounds of merchantable sugar for each cellful of chips. The seconds
from this would doubtless have brought the yield up to 130 pounds.
But the general reader and the prospective manufacturer are more in-
terested in average than in special results. It seems safe to assume
that a mean of 100 pounds of sugar and 12 gallons of molasses can be
made from each ton of cleaned sorghum cane of average richness.

Science suggests several methods for the complete separation of the
cane sugar from the grape sugar and the " not sugar'," and further ex-
periments in this direction should be the work of the near future. As
yet almost nothing has been done towards the development of methods
of separating the grape sugar from the not sugar. This subject pre-
sents a most inviting field for the chemist.
15449— No. 17 4

50

THE FUTURE OF THE SORGHUM-SUGAR INDUSTRY.

The sorghuin-sugar industry now seems to have an assured future.
The quantities of sugar and molasses, and other valuable products ob-
tained from each ton of the cane and from each acre of laud, well re-
munerate the farmer for his crop and the manufacturer for his invest-
ment and the labor and skill required to operate the factory.

An acre ot land cultivated in sorghum yields a greater tonnage of
valuable products than in any other crop, with the possible exception
of hay. Under ordinary methods of cultivation, 10 tons of cleaned cane
per acre is somewhat above the average, but the larger varieties often
exceed 12, while the small Early Amber sometimes goes below 8 tons
per acre. Let 7£ tons of cleaned cane per acre be assumed. for the il-
lustration. This corresponds to a gross yield of 10 tons for the farmer,
and at $2 per ton gives him $20 per acre for his crop. These 7£ tons
of clean cane will yield —

Pounds.

Sugar 750

Molasses , 1,000

Seed 900

Fodder (green leaves) - 1 , 500

Exhausted chips (dried ) 1 , 500

Total 5, 650

The first three items, which are as likely to be transported as wheat
or corn, aggregate 2,050 pounds per acre.

Sorghum will yield 7J tons of cleaned cane per acre more surely than
corn will yield 30 bushels, or wheat 15 bushels per acre.

In the comparison, then, of products which bear transportation, these
crops stand as follows :

(Sorghum, at 7£ tons, 2,650 pounds per acre.

Corn, at 30 bushels, 1,C80 pounds per acre.

Wheat, at 15 bushels, 900 pounds per acre.

The sugar from the sorghum is worth say 5 cents per pound ; the
molasses, 1J cents per pound ; the seed, J cent per pound.

The products give market values as follows :

750 pounds sugar at say 5 cents* $37. 50

1,000 pounds molasses at say If cents* 17. 50

900 pounds seed at say -i cent* 4.50

Total value of sorghum, less fodder 55. 50

The corn crop gives 1,680 pounds, at £ cent 8. 40

The wheat crop gives-900 pounds, at 1 cent 9, 00

Thus it will be seen that the sorghum yields to the farmer more than
twice as much per acre as either of the leading cereals, and as a gross

* The sugar sold this year at 5| cents per pound, the molasses at 20 cents per gallon,
and the seed at — — per bushel of 56 pounds. The seed is of about equal value with
corn for feeding stock.

51

product ot agriculture and manufacture mi our own soil more than six
times us much per acre as is usually realized from either of these stand-
ard crops.

LENGTH OF THE SEASON FOR WORKING SORGHUM.

The seasou for harvesting sorghum is limited to the months during
which it may be worked. At present, this dates in our southern coun-
ties from about the last of July to the middle or last of October, if a
proper selection of varieties of cane has been made. Without doubt
this season may, and will be, lengthened. On this point I can do no
better than quote from my report to this Department in 1884:

As shown by the reports of the sugar factories of Kansas for the last two years, the
working season is confined almost exclusively to the mouths of September and Octo-
ber. When the great cost of sugar- works, the expense of keeping them in repair, and
the salaries of the specialists, are considered, the importance of lengthening the work-'
ing seasou becomes painfully apparent. That a $100,000 factory should lie idle for
ten months every year, implies that it must bo run at an enormous profit during the
two months or fail to pay interest on the iu vestment.

Several plans have been proposed for extending the time during which the works
may run. One of these is the development of earlier varieties of cane by systematic
selection of seed, cultivation, and breeding. The researches of modern physiological
botanists give reason to hope for good results in this direction.

Another plan proposed is to reduce the juice to a semi-sirup in small auxiliary fac-
tories, store the semi-sirup, and make it into sugar during the winter mouths. This
has much to commend it.

STORING CANES IN SILOS.

Experiments have been made repeatedly in keeping canes in sheds, but with indif-
ferent success. A good deal has been done in the line of preserving green forage crops
in pits, and expensive silos have been made and used. Sorghum has been laid away
and kept in these with fair success.

A practical plan for keeping cane by simply covering it with a few inches of soil
has been, used in three experiments now on record. The first of these was made at
Tilsonburg, Ontario, in 1831-'8.2, by Mr. Frank Stroback, now of Sterling, Kaus. Mr.
Stroback has kindly handed me a copy of his record, which is given below, with the
addition of the column giving the density of tlie juice in degrees Baumd, to render
these results more easily comparable with the other analyses given in this paper.

Frank Stroback's experiment in keeping cane in silo.

When put iu silo. r>;;uinr.

Balling.

Polarization.

1
October 3 1881 1 8 90 to 8 80°

14 00 to 15 00°

Decembers 1881 .... 8 15

)4 70

]9 28

December 17 1882 7.70

13. 90

9 82

March 4 1882 7 55

13 61

9 07

The cane used in this experiment was the early amber. The juice showed a de-
preciation, but the results were encouraging.

In the fall of 18S:}, Professor Wiley, chief chemist of the U. S. Department of Agri-
culture, placed a ton of early amber in a shallow pit, and placed over it a covering of
earth on the grounds of the Department of Agriculture at Washington. In his report

52

of April 22, 1884, Professor Wiley gives an account of this experiment, from which the
following information is taken :

The canes wore placed in silo November 12, 1883. Numerous analyses of juices of
canes similar to those preserved showed —

Sucrose, about 9 per cent.

Other sugars, about 3 per cent.

Professor Wiley's analysis of cane from silo, January 14, 1884.

Percentage of juice expressed 68. 9

Specific gravity, 8° B 1.057

Percentage of sucrose 8. 39

Percentage of other sugars 2. 3C

Analysis of cane from silo, February 27, 1884.

Percentage of juice expressed 73.67

Specific gravity 1. 057

Percentage of sucrose 7. 00

Percentage of other sugars 3. 13

Analysis of cane from silo, April 1, 1884.

Percentage of juice expressed 73. 81

Specific gravity 1.05

Percentage of sucrose 5.89

Percentage of other sugars 3. 72

I was greatly interested in these results, which showed that the early amber cane
can be kept during the. greater part of the winter with very little depreciation of its
content of sugar.

In order to extend the experiment to other varieties, and to test the possibility of
keeping Kansas canes in silo, on October 15, 1884, 1 placed 1 ton of Link's hybrid and
1 ton of early orange in winrows between rows of stubble, and placed thereon a cov-
ering of about 2 inches of sandy soil. Analyses were made on the day on which they
were buried, and subsequently, as shown in the following tables:

Analyses of juices of canes kept in silo.

Dale.

Remarks.

B.

Glucose. Sucrose.

I

Other
solids.

1884.
Oct: 15
Nov. 15

Nov. 29
Dec. 20
1885.
Jan. 24

1884.
Oct. 15
Nov. 15

Nov. 29
Dec. "26

18c5.
Jan. 29
Jan. 30

Feb. 2

EARLY OUAXGE.

(Produced by J. B. Keeley, 2 miles southwest from Sterl-
ing.)

11.8

10.8
10.7
9.8

11.2

9.8

10.2
10.3

10.7
11.6

11.5
25.0

.05

4.88
4.03
1.19

4.80

1.16

1.11
1.49

2.72
5.49

5.35
11.49

15.62

10.72
9.45
11.69

10.85

11.21

13. 02

12.26

12.93
11.40

11.22
24.10

4.73

3.90
5.82

4.82

4.55

5.33

4.37
4.83

3.65
2.91

4.23
10.21

Leaves molded, canes green — interior of canes reddened

Appearance unchanged since November

186 pounds cane gave 100 pounds juice ••= 53| per cent, on

LINK'S HYBRID.
Cut and buried to-day

Leaves moliled, canes green— interior of canes reddened
to first node top and bottom

Appearance unchanged since 15th instant

Some of the canes show decomposition where they had
been bruised

Small sample analyzed

6UO pounds cane gave 312 pounds juice — 52 per cent, on
hand-crusher; defecated by adding milk of lime, boiling

Above boiled to 17° B. hot in open-fire pan

53

Samples of tho caues taken from the silo on the 26th of Decemher were sent to
Professor Swenson, superintendent of tho Hutchinson Sugar Works. On the 4th of
January, 1885, Professor Swenson reported the following as the results of his exami-
nation of the Link's Hybrid cane :

JUICE.

Per cent.

Sucrose 15.25

Glucose 1.10

Other solids 3.94

ENTIRE CANE.

Insoluble solids 11. 72

Sucrose 13. 73

Glucose 1. 00

Other soluble solids 2. 25

Water 71.00

Total 100.00

Mr. J. C. Hart, superintendent of the farm of the Hutchinson Sugar Works, reported
the following results of examinations of tho Early Orange cane taken from the silo
December 26 :

Analysis of January 5, sucrose and glucose taken from diffusion juice.

Per cent.

Water 67.7

1 1 1 so 1 u b 1 es = o . . . . 13.9

Sucrose D». .DB. 14.8

Glucose o ..o= 1.6

Gums, etc 2.0

Total 100.0

Analysis of January 7, from expressed juice.

Sucrose 14. 0

Glucose 3.2

Gum, etc 4.8

On the 9th of January canes were again taken from the silo and submitted to Prof.
M. A. Scovell, superintendent of the Sterling works, for analysis. The following re-
sults are taken from his report :

LINK'S HYBRID.

Amount of canes taken pounds.. 18

Amount of juice expressed do 7£

Juice ... per cent.. 41$

Density of juice, 10.6 B.

Glucose per cent.. 5.53

Sucrose do 9.73

ORANGE.

Amount of canes taken pounds.. 12

Amount of juice, 4 pounds per cent.. 33£

Density of juice, 10.7 B.

Glucose percent.. 5.83

Sucrose.. do.... 8.84

54

Samples of the canes taken from the silo on January 9 were sent to the Hutchin-
son Sugar Works, to the State Agricultural college, and to the State University for
analysis.

On January 12, Mr. J. C. Hart, of the Hutchiuson works, reported the following
average of two analyses, crushed juice.

Orange
cane.
Brix, 22o.

Link's Hy-
brid cane.
Brix, 21.7°.

Per cent.
69.90

Per cent.
68.20

10.50

12. 90

3.45

3.20

Snrroso

12.34

12.19

Other solids - -

3.81

100. 00

3. 51

100. 00

Prof. G. H. Fallyer, professor of chemistry in the State Agricultural college, made
the following report of his analyses of these canes on January 14 :

Orange
cane.

Link's Hy-
brid cane.

44.9
1.0876
9.82
6.84

45.5
1. 0809
9.06
6.65

Summarizing the results of these analyses as to cane sugar, we find that they stand
as follows:

Date.

Variety of cane.

Variety of cane.

Name of
analyst.

Oct 15

Link's Hybrid 11 ^1 per cent, sugar ...

Orange 15.62 per cent, suffir

Cowgill.

Nov 15

Link's Hybrid 13 02 per cent, sugar.

Orange, 10.72 per cent, sugar

Cowgill.

Nov. 29
Dec 9G

Link's Hybrid, 12.26 per cent, sugar
Link's Hybrid 1''. 93 per cent, sugar ....

Orange, 9.45 per cent, sugar
Orange, 11.69 ptr cent su<rar

Cowgill.
Cowgiil.

Swenson.

Orange 14 8 per cent su^sir

Hart.

Orange, 14 0 per cent. su"ar . ...

Hart.

Jan. 9
Jan 12

Link's Hybrid, 9.73 per cent sugar
Link's Hybrid 12 19 per cent sugar

Orange, 8.84 per cent, sugar
Orange 1'-' 34 per cent su<rar

Scovell.
Hart.

Jan. 14

Link's Hybrid 9.06 per cent, sugar

Orange, 9.82 per cent, su^ar .

Failyer.

Jan 24

Cowgill.

Jan 29

Link's Hybrid 11.40 per cent, su^ar

Cowgill.

It should be remarked that the samples taken from the silo, January 9, were those
which had been most exposed to the action of the sun and wind on account of the
frequent opening of the silo. This may account for the great depreciation shown by
the analysis of these samples.

The juice obtained on January 24 from the Early Orange cane was defecated with
milk of lime, boiled, skimmed, and settled, and reduced to semi-sirup, 17° B., hot, in
the usual way in open fire pan. It was then taken into a small vacuum pan and boiled
to nearly the crystallizing point by Mr. Frank Stroback, an experienced sugar-boiler.
It was then drawn off and set away in a warm place, and is crystallizing into a fine
melada.

The juice obtained on January 29 from the Link's Hybrid cane was treated in a
manner precisely similar to that above described for the Early Orange, except that it
was "boiled to grain " in the vacuum pan by Mr. Stroback. This was effected as fol-

55

lows : Ten quarts of semi-sirup were first introduced, and boiled in vacuo to the
crystallizing density. A pint of cold semi-sirup was then added, and the contents
of the pan again reduced to the crystallizing density. The process of adding a
pint of seini-sirup and reducing to the crystallizing density was repeated until the
boiling was complete. After a few of these additions had been made, a slight tur-
bidity of the sirup was observed. On placing- the sirup now under a microscope and
examining it by transmitted light, the turbidity was seen to result from countless
microscopic crystals of sugar. The subsequent additions of semi-sirup fed these
minute crystals, and they continued to grow in size as long as the operation was con-
tinued.

It is well known to sugar-boilers that it is impossible to crystallize in the pan the
sugar from very poor juices. The success, therefore, of this last experiment abun-
dantly verifies the results of the chemical analysis, which showed that this Link's
Hybrid cane contained on the 29th of January very nearly the same percentage of
sugar as when put awny on the 15th of October. Mr. Stroback states that the crys-
tallization was as easily produced as at any time during the working season of 1884.

It is therefore fully established that some varieties of sorghum cane can be pre-
served in an inexpensive way without impairment of the sugar until the last of Jan-
nary. It is desirable that the experiment be extended to other of the late varieties,
notably the Honduras, which yields 15 tons to 30 tons per acre, but does not perfect its
sugar during the regular fall working season.

CENTRAL AND AUXILIARY FACTORIES— SIZE OF FACTORIES.

The complete sugar factory is an expensive establishment, and while
most of the work of operating it can be performed by laboring men of
ordinary intelligence, there will be required in each of such factories,
whether large or small, at least two men whose attainments will com-
mand liberal compensation. These are the chemist, or the superintend-
ent with a cheaper chemist for an assistant, and the sugar-boiler.
Good business management is of course also necessary to success. The
chemist and the sugar-boiler can preside over a large as well as over
a small factory. Moreover, many of the labors of the factory can be
performed with no fewer men in a small than in a large factory. It will
therefore be cheaper to work a given amount of cane and to turn out a
given amount of product in large than in small factories. The limit,
however, beyond which experience so far does not warrant manufact-
urers to go is believed to be at a capacity of about 270 tons of cleaned
cane per day.

In order to use to the best advantage the services of the specialists
of the business, it has been proposed to establish at convenient places
auxiliary factories which shall carry the processes so far as to prepare
sirup for the strike-pan. This sirup will be stored in suitable tanks
or cisterns and worked for sugar after the close of the season for hand-
ling cane. In this way the working season for the central factory may
be prolonged to occupy almost the entire year. The auxiliary factories
will cost about half or two-thirds as much as the complete factory,
capable of taking care of the same amount of cane. As thus arranged,
the central factory will, in addition to its own regular season's work,
take care of the sirup from two or three of these sirup factories.

56

It will doubtless be found economical to provide the central factory
with sugar apparatus of two or three times the capacity required to
take care of its own sirup, thereby increasing the number of auxiliaries
which may be made dependent upon it. Jt must not be inferred from
what is here said that the sugar -factory can make sugar from ordinary
sorghum molasses. The auxiliaries will necessarily be under the super-
vision of the central factory, and the value of its sirups will depend
upon the proper execution of the processes of manufacture. The sirups
from the auxiliaries may be transported to the central factory in tank
cars or by pipe lines.

HOW FAB MAY CANE BE HAULED?

The price paid for cane delivered at the sugar factory has heretofore
been $2 per ton. It needs only to be stated that long hauls by wagon
would cost too much to leave any profit to the farmer at this price. It
is doubtful whether the farmer who lives more than 3 miles from the
factory can afford to raise cane unless he can transport it most of the
way by rail. Again, the factory will easily obtain all it can work from
farmers whose distance does not exceed 2 miles, and will prefer to
patronize these on account of the greater regularity with which they
can deliver their crops, as well as the greater facility with which the
supervision of the factory may be extended. Farmers living on a line
of railroad may be able to ship their cane on such favorable terms as to
avail themselves of the market at the factory. In Cuba and in some
parts of Louisiana, light railroads are constructed where the distance
is too great for hauling on ordinary roads. On these a team hauls about
13 tons at a load.

The system of central and auxiliary factories seems, however, to offer
the best solution for the problem of distance.

CAN THE FARMER MAKE HIS OWN SUGAR FROM SORGHUM?

Several experimenters have sought to answer this question in a prac-
tical way. The developments of the last few years have clearly estab-
lished the fact that the cane crusher has had its day. Hereafter the
juice will be extracted by the process of diffusion, whereby at least
double the yield possible with crushers is obtained, at the same time
giving a juice which may be readily treated.

Mr. H. A. Hughes, of Kio Grande, N. J., has been experimenting with
a small diffusion battery, and has this season worked 80 acres of sorghum
with a battery whose capacity is 25 tons per day. I have not received
Mr. Hughes' official report, but the results claimed are fully as favor-
able as those obtained at Fort Scott. II is report will be looked for
with interest.

Messrs. Densmore Brothers, of Red Wing. Minn., had an evaporating
apparatus at Fort Scott during a part of the present season, and made

57

small amounts of sugar from the diffusion juice of the factory. They
have furnished the following report, which will be of interest to those
studying this part of the subject:

DENSMORES' REPORT.

The John F. Porter steam evaporator deserves special notice in this report. It can
be safely and economically employed by every manufacturer of sorghum sirup and
sugar. The line of operation employed in this evaporator is that of a shallow body
of juice having a continuous flow forward among and over the pipes of steam-heated
coils while being purified and concentrated.

The evaporator is composed of two pans or compartments, each of which is pro-
vided with a coil of copper pipe. By reason of a peculiar but simple method of ap-
plying steam to these coils, the development and throwing out of scum and impurities
is begun as soon as the juice enters the evaporator, and is kept up until the juice ia
thoroughly purged of all impurity. The scum collects along one side of each pan,
and within an average distance of 8 inches from the point where it was developed,
and is removed from the pan as required by a simple and effective arrangement of
skimmers.

While purification has been in progress the juice has been concentrated to a heavy
semi-sirup, which is then finished to the desired density.

The line of operation is continuous aud uninterrupted, the juice being admitted to
and the finished product escaping from the evaporator in a continuous stream.

During the month of September last one of the largest of these evaporators was set
up and operated at the Parkinson Sugar Works, Fort Scott, Kans., by the manufact-
urers for the purpose of investigating the adaptation of the principle therein em-
ployed to the manufacture of sugar, aud with special inquiry as to the per cent, or
amount of inversion of sugar which it might cause.

Four runs or tests were made with this question in view, and the results— given in
ratio of glucose to sucrose — were as follows:

Test No. 1.— Juice 1 of glucose to 3.24 of sucrose.

Finished product 1 " 3.05 "

Test No. 2.— Juice 1 " 3.29 "

Finished product 1 " 3.27 "

Test No. 3.— Juice 1 " 3.35 "

Finished product 1 " 3.36 "

Test No. 4.— Juice 1 " 3.60 "

Finished product 1 " 3.53 "

Deductions from these results show as follows : In the first test, a loss by inversion
of a little over 1 per cent. ; in the second and third tests there was practically no
loss, and in the fourth test a loss of less than a third of 1 per cent. The average loss
on the four tests was less than three-eighths of 1 per cent. Practically, this process
causes no inversion of the sucrose of the juices.

To the wants of the sirup manufacturer, the Porter evaporator is fully adapted in
every essential and particular necessary to success. It works rapidly and produces a
sirup of bright color and best quality. It is easily operated, and the line of opera-
tion is wholly within the control of the operator, whether working for sirup or
sugar.

Mr. A. A. Denton made some experiments in air evaporation at the
Sterling Sirup Works, and has furnished the following report of his
apparatus and operations :

DENTON'S REPORT.

The Sterling Sirup Works have made careful tests of two forms of air-evaporating
apparatus in manufacturing sirup this season, and believe the results are of impor-

58

tance to the cane industry, as they show that a cheap and easily-managed apparatus
for evaporating at a low temperature, suited to the use of thousands of small facto-
ries, may be found in machines for drying or evaporating semi-sirup by hot air ; and
the method seems peculiarly adapted to the dry air of the Western States and Terri-
tories.

The first form of apparatus we used consisted of a liquid-carrier, which had 322
square feet of surface, inclosed in a box or case 3 feet wide by 2 feet, and 14 feet
high, placed upon a square tank which held 300 gallons of sirup. The liquid-carrier
passed continuously through the sirup in the tank, and its 322 square feet of surface
were kept uniformly wet with sirup in thin films by the adhesion of sirup to the
surfaces. A fan forced a blast of air through all the surfaces of the liquid-carrier.
Hot sirup from the finishing pan was run into the tank, and was immediately spread
over the 322 square feet of surface on the liquid-carrier by the motion of the liquid-
carrier, where it came in contact with the current of air. The result was that con-
siderable water escaped from the hot sirup in the form of steam, instead of condens-
ing in the sirup, as it does when hot sirup is cooled in the ordinary way, and this
increased the density of the sirup. The blast of air also absorbed and carried off con-
siderable water from the sirup, and the density of the sirup was thus increased three or
four degrees by the Baum6 saccharometer. This was equivalent to boiling the sirup to
greater density without the injury caused by the excessive heat necessary in boiling
heavy sirup. The sooner sirup is removed from the heat of the finishing pan the
better it is, and the sooner hot sirup is cooled the better it is, for finished sirup is
hot enough to be injured by the heat it contains after it has left the finishing pan.
The output of the Sterling Sirup Works is 2 to 3 barrels per hour, and in previous
years we have had trouble and loss in cooling that quantity of sirup in steady day
and night runs. The above-described apparatus cools hot sirup in large quantities,
and also increases its density quickly and perfectly. It reduced the temperature of
100 gallons of boiling sirup from 236 degrees to 110 degrees in five minutes.

In boiling sirup we usually boil until the sirup has a density while hot of 35 to 36
degrees, as tested by the Baume" saccharometer, but after testing this apparatus we
boiled only to 30 degrees, and then reduced it to the proper density by leaving it in
this apparatus exposed to the blast of air until it becomes as dense as if it had been
boiled to 36 degrees and had then been cooled in the ordinary \vay. We regard it as
an established fact, that sirup at 30 Baume can be evaporated on large surfaces by
air to any density required, and also th.it the color and flavor of the sirup are better
than when exposed longer to the high heat of the finishing pan. By allowing the
sirup to remain for some time in this apparatus the sirup was evaporated or dried by
the current of air to such density that it was impossible to draw the sirup from the
tank through a 2-inch outlet until it had been diluted. All the sirup made this sea-
son from 700 acres of cane was cooled ready to barrel and was finished from densities
varying from 30 Baum6 to 36 Ban me* by air evaporation in this apparatus. We next
built an apparatus on the same plan as the above-described apparatus, except that it
had no fan to cause a current of air ; the current of air was caused by heating the air
in a furnace, as is done in hot-air fruit evaporators. Hot air evaporates water much
more rapidly than cold air, and in operating on thin or dilute sweet liquids it is nec-
essary to heat the air above the fermenting point — above the point where air has
chemical action on the liquid. This is shown by drying fruit in air at summer tem-
perature ; the product is the inferior sun-dried fruit, because the air has acted chem-
ically on the saccharine liquid in the fruit; but when fruit is dried by hot air, as in
the modern fruit-evaporators, the product is perfect, because hot air has no chemical
action on the sweet liquid in the fruit. This hot-air apparatus had 273 square feet of
surface covered with semi-sirup in thin films, and exposed to a current of hot air which
absorbed and carried off the water of the sirup. In this apparatus cane juice which
had been boiled until the scum was white and free from green color was evaporated

59

to heavy sirup by hot air. The cano juice was boiled to a density of from 20 to 25
degrees Baume, according to the quality of the juice, and as was necessary to clarify
the juice, and only boiled as long as it was necessary to skim the boiling juice. It
was then dried, or evaporated by hot air, at a temperature of 130 to 140 degrees, until
it became dense sirup. It is probable that it would fcave been better to have had a
temperature of 140 to 180 degrees, which is the best temperature for evaporating fruit
by hot air, and which is the usual temperature in vacuum-pan boiling. In the cold-
air apparatus it was necessary to boil the juice until it had such density that air at
summer temperature would not act chemically upon the sirup or ferment it, and then
finish the evaporation by air at ordinary temperature.

In the hot-air apparatus it was necessary to boil the juice only long enough to
clarify it, and then finish the evaporation by air heated above the point of chemical
action or fermentation. To illustrate this point : Ordinary sirup may be exposed to
air at summer temperature without change or fermentation, while a dilute sweet
liquid exposed to air at summer temperature would be chemically changed ; but a
dilute sweet liquid exposed to air heated to 150 degrees, which is the scalding-point,
would not ferment— it would evaporate to sirup.

This hot-air apparatus had 273 square feet of surface, inclosed in a box 3 by 2 feet
and 6 feet high. At a temperature of 140 degrees it evaporated ] pound of water
per hour from each square foot of surface — that is, it evaporated 273 pounds of water
per hour at 140 degrees. A gallon of cane juice weighs 8.8 pounds. Reducing 7 gal-
lons of cane juice, or 61.6 pounds of juice, to 1 gallon of heavy sirup at sugar density
weighing 13 pounds to the gallon, requires the evaporation of 48.6 pounds of water
for each gallon of sirup. Where the evaporation from cane juice to heavy sirup is
entirely performed by hot air, the hot-air apparatus gives 5i gallons of sirup, weigh-
ing 13 pounds to the gallon, per hour, as the product of the evaporation from 273
square feet of surface in a current of air at 140 degrees. When cane juice is boiled
to a density of 20 to 25 degrees Baum6 in order to clarify it, and the hot-air apparatus
is only required to finish the evaporation, it produces from 10 to 15 gallons of heavy
sirup per hour, for the greater part of the evaporation has been performed by boiling.

The hot-air apparatus above described is of a size and capacity suited to a two-
horse cane-mill. It would finish the semi-sirup produced by such a mill to heavy
sirup, using a temperature of 140 degrees instead of 240 degrees, which is required in
finishing heavy sirup by boiling.

The principle of the air-evaporating apparatus is, that evaporation is as rapid from
large surfaces exposed to air at comparatively low temperature as from small surfaces
intensely heated, and that in evaporating dilute sweet liquids it is necessary to heat
the air above the point of chemical action upon the liquid. Solid substances have
large quantities of water removed from them by exposing large surfaces to the evapo-
rating action of the air. A bushel of apples weighing 50 pounds is reduced by hot
air to 6 pounds of perfect product. The same can be done with liquids under similar
conditions. As a result of these experiments we intend to build hot-air apparatus
large enough to reduce all our semi-sirup to sirup by hot air next season.

If the question be asked, "Can the farmer profitably make his own
sugar ?" i. e., make sugar for his own use in a small way, I apprehend
that the answer should be much the same as would be given to the ques-
tion, U0an the farmer profitably make his own woolen goods or his own
flour? " If, indeed, I have succeeded in the preceding pages in convey-
ing an adequate idea of what sugar-making is, I apprehend that my
readers will omit to ask the questions about manufacturing in a very
small way.

The farmer who is so fortunate as to be near a sugar factory can do
much better than to erect and try to operate sugar machinery on a

60

small scale. An acre of good sorghum delivered at the factory will pay
for a barrel of nice nearly- white sugar. The farmer who is not so for
turiately situated will probably try to induce some company to erect a
factory near him, or will join with his neighbors in forming a company
for the purpose of building a factory as soon as the skilled labor neces-
sary for its operation can be secured, thereby providing not only his
own sugar from his own soil, but at the same time a sure and steady
market for the most certain and profitable crop he can raise.

SUGAR REFINERIES.

The sugar produced by the processes herein described is light, but
not white, in color. Its sweetening power is not surpassed by any raw
sugar, and its taste is very agreeable. The demand of the age is, how-
ever, for the best possible goods, and sorghum sugar must be refined to
the purest whiteness, and made into the various conditions demanded
by the market.

To do this requires the work of the sugar refiuery. The largest of
the central factories soon to be erected will doubtless be provided with
refining facilities, and when located at convenient shipping centers will
be developed into large refineries as rapidly as the raw sugar can be
obtained to give them work.

CONCLUSION.

There seems to be no doubt but that there is here developed an in-
dustry of vast importance to our State and nation. For the year end-
ing June 30, 1886, there was consumed in the United States foreign
grown and manufactured sugar amounting to 2,689,881,765 pounds.*
If two thousand new sugar factories were at once erected, and each
should produce an annual product of one and a quarter million pounds
of sugar, they would not supply the place of the sugars now imported.

The annual consumption of sugar per capita in the United States is
about 56 pounds. The population of Kansas may be taken as 1,500,000.
These people consume each year 56 x 1,500,000 = 84,000,000 pounds of
sugar. It will be safe to say that the annual average product of the
factories will not exceed 1,500,000 pounds, so that fifty-six factories will
be required to supply the sugar consumed by the present population of
Kansas, and for which they pay over $5,000,000 annually.

Processes whereby sugar can be made at a profit from sorghum have
been worked out. These are far from perfect, but present develop-
ments give promise of others in the near future, and will enable us to
produce our own sugar on our soil, with the labor of our people. Those
who invest in the new industry will be cautious about experimenting
with unknown conditions. Kansas is therefore likely to lead in the
development, and become the first Northern sugar State.

"Address of Dr. H. W. Wiley before the Chemical Society, December 9, 1886.

LETTERS PATENT GRANTED TO M. SWENSON.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE,
Washington, D. (7., December 10, 1887.

SIR: In response to the resolution of the Senate of the 7th instant,
directing me to inform the Senate whether any person in the employ of
this Department has applied for or obtained a patent on any process
connected with certain experiments in the manufacture of sugar from
sorghum, conducted under the auspices of the Government, I have the
honor to make the following statement of facts :

For the fiscal year 1886-'87 Congress made an appropriation of $94,000
for " continuing and concluding experiments in the manufacture of sugar
by the diffusion and saturation process, from sorghum and sugar-cane."
By virtue of this appropriation the Commissioner appointed, under date
of July 10, 1886, Mr. Magnus Swenson "an agent of this Department
to superintend, under the direction of the chemist, the experiments in
the manufacture of sugar from sorghum at Fort Scott, Kans."

In his report to me, under date of December 21, 1886, Professor Wi-
ley, the chief chemist of this Department, in detailing the experiments
above alluded to, stated that an acidity existed in the diffusion bath,
causing a conversion of a portion of sucrose (sugar) into glucose, and that
several experiments had been made to correct this acidity. Among
those experiments was one in which he added " freshly precipitated car-
bonate of lime to the extraction bottle," a method which he states was
suggested by Professor Swenson. At the close of these experiments,
November 15, 1886, Mr. Swenson's service ceased. On April 27, 1887,
he was again appointed " superintendent of sugar experiments at Fort
Scott. Kans.," which position he now holds. On October 21, 1887, I
was informed that Professor Swenson was seeking a patent for the
process which he had suggested as above stated, and while in the
line of his duty and which had been tried in a public experiment with
the people's money and for the benefit of the country. On that date I
filed with the Commissioner of Patents my protest against any action
on the part of his office by which Professor Sweuson, as an individ-
ual, should reap the benefit of this experiment. In answer to that
letter I received a communication from the Commissioner of Patents,

61

62

under date of October 26, staling that Professor Swenson bad been al-
lowed letters patent on the process, under date of October 11, 18S7. In
that patent the following claims were allowed to Professor Swenson :

(1) As an improvement in the diffusion process of making sugar, the mode herein
described of preventing the invertive action of the organic acids in the cane chips
upon the sugar during the process of extraction, said mode consisting in adding to
the diffusion bath a carbonate of the alkaline earths, substantially as set forth.

(2) As an improvement in the diffusion process of making sugar, the mode herein
described of preventing the invertive action of the organic acids in the cane chips
upon the sugar during the process of extraction, said mode consisting in adding to
the diffusion bath calcium carbonate, substantially as set forth.

The application for this patent was filed on December 29, 1886, after
Professor Sweuson's employment by the Government had ceased, but
the nature of the claims is so closely allied to the experiment made
with carbonate of lime, heretofore alluded to, that it seems to leave no
doubt that Professor Swensou intended to cover in his patent the sug-
gestion which he made in the line of his duty, which was adopted during
his employment, and which amounted only to an improvement in a
process which had been conceived, planned, and was then being perfected
by the Government of the United States.

I deem it proper to add that I have had an exhaustive search made
of judicial decisions and legal opinions bearing upon the validity of a
patent granted under these circumstances, and that I have become con-
vinced that the state of the art, and the fact of Mr. Swenson's appoint-
ment and employment by this Department, will affect the validity of his
claim, and that I have therefore called the attention of the Attorney-
General to all the facts in the case and suggested to him the institution
of a suit looking to a perpetual injunction to restrain Professor Swenson
from making any use of this patent.

As bearing upon this case, I beg respectfully to inclose, as an appen-
dix to this communication,, certain citations and memoranda for the in-
formation of the Senate, and in this connection I beg also to recommend
such immediate action on the part of the legislative branch of the Gov-
ernment as will enable the Attorney-General, if he has not now sufficient
authority, to institute a suit looking to the cancellation of the patent in
question.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

NORMAN J. COLMAN,
Commissioner of Agriculture.

Hon. JOHN J. INGALLS,

President pro tempore United States Senate.

63

[Copy of statement of facts submitted to the Attorney-General for bis information by the Commis-
sioner of Agriculture.]

Letters Patent, No. 371528, issued to Magnus Svvenson. Manufacture of sugar.

STATEMENT OF FACTS.

The Department of Agriculture directed its attention to the manufacture of sugar
from maize and sorghum cane in the year 1877, and since that time has continuously
been engaged in investigations and experiments for the purpose of discovering a pro-
cess that would extract the sugar from these canes in a commercially successful man-
ner. These experiments have been carried on by direct authorization of Congress.

The first session of the Forty-seventh Congress appropriated, " For experiments in
the manufacture of sugar from sorghum, beets, and other sugar-producing plants,
twenty- five thousand dollars." (Stat. L., vol. 22, p. 91.)

The same Congrnss at its second session appropriated $16,000 (vol. 22, p. 410) ; the
Forty-eighth Congress at its first session appropriated $50,000 (vol. 23, p. 38), and at
its second session, $40,000 (vol. 23, p. 354) for the same purpose. In 1883 the chemist
of the Department conceived the idea of adapting the " diffusion process," success-
fully used in Europe in the manufacture of beet sugar, to the extraction of sugar
from sorghum and maize cane. The results of the experiments carried on in this di-
rection during the year 1883 are continued in special Bulletins Nos. 2 and 3, issued by
the Chemical Division of the Department in 1884.

Further investigations were made during the year 1884, and a chemist from the
Chemical Division was sent to Europe to study the "diffusion process" as practiced
there and the machinery used in its application. The results of the work for this
year are fully set out in Bulletin No. 5. Bulletin No. 6 contains a record of the work
for the year 1885.

In the fall of 1885 Professor Wiley, chemist of the Department, was directed to
proceed to Europe to study the "diffusion process." Bulletin No. 8 gives the result
of his visit there and conclusions reached as to the proper adaptation of process and
machinery to manufacture sugar in this country from sorghum cane by the " diffusion
process."

As a result of the investigations and experiments brought down to 1886, this De-
partment felt convinced that it had reached a satisfactory solution of sugar manu-
facture, as applied to "sorghum, and that it had secured a successful method and
devised suitable machinery to establish this work as one of the commercial industries
of the country. To test the process and the machinery devised on a commercial
scale, anJ for the purpose of perfecting by experiments any defect that might arise
either in the chemical progress of the process or mechanical arrangement of the
machinery, the Department received from Congress an appropriation for these pur-
poses.

On June 30, 1886, there was appropriated as follows: "For purchase, erection,
transportation, and operation of machinery, and necessary traveling within the
United States, and other expenses in continuing and concluding experiments in the
manufacture of sugar, by the ' diffusion and saturation processes,' from sorghum and
sugar cane, so much thereof as may be necessary to be immediately available, $94,000."
(Stat.L., vol.23, p. 101.)

Under this act of Congress the Commissioner of Agriculture on the 19th of July,
1886, employed and appointed one Magnus Swenson to " superintend, under the di-
rection of the chemist, the experiments in the manufacture of sugar from sorghum at
Fort Scott, Kaiis," at a salary of $2,400 per annum, during the continuance of the
experiments. A copy of this appointment is hereto appended. (Exhibit A.)

The experiments carried on under the foregoing act of Congress last mentioned are
set out in detail in Bulletin No. 14, a copy of which is appended. (Exhibit B.)

In the course of these experiments a difficulty was met with, described on page 28
of Exhibit B, namely, an acidity in the diffusion battery, which caused an inversion

64

of a portion of sucrose into glucose, thereby diminishing the amount of sugar that
should be obtained. On the same page are detailed the experiments made to over-
come this defect. Experiment No. 4, " the addition of freshly precipitated carbonate
of lime to the ' extraction bottle,' " was suggested by Mr. Swensou, the superintend-
ent of the experiments, under the foregoing employment. Comments on the result
of this experiment will be found on pages 32 and 33 of Bull. 16.

Experiments at Fort Scott, Kans., were discontinued on November 15, 1886, and
the service of Mr. Swenson as agent of this Department ceased on that day.

On December 29, 1886, Mr. Swenson filed an application for letters patent for an
improvement in the manufacture of sugar, and on October 11, 1887, letters patent No.
371528 were issued to him.

This patent is for the use of carbonate of lime and carbonates of other alkaline
earths in the diffusion bath to prevent the invertive action of organic acids during
the process of extraction. It is simply a patent for experiment No. 4, as made at
Fort Scott, Kans., by this Department, and set out on page 28 of Bull. 16.

I am informed that Mr. Swensou is now threatening to prosecute all persons who
shall use the method described and covered by his patent, and this Department, still
being engaged in experimentation for the manufacture of sugar, will be liable to Mr.
Sweusou in damages for using a process discovered by itself, if the patent aforesaid
is rightfully the property of Mr. Swenson.

II.

CONDITION OF THE ART.

The aforesaid patent is for the use of carbonate of the alkaline earths to neutralize
organic acids present in saccharine solutions, and thus prevent inversion of sucrose
into glucose. This is not new, and has been known to those engaged in the art of
manufacture of sugar for years, and allusions are to be met with to its use in works
describing this art, and patents have been issued for this same means for neutralizing
acidity in saccharine solutions in England. A brief reference to some of these will be
made.

In a work entitled "Sugar Growing and Refining," by Wigner and Harland, pub-
lished in London in 1882,, the following allusions are made pertinent to this part of
the art.

On page 185, in describing the diffusion process, it says:

" In order to insure the solidification in the tissues of the soluble substance injuri-
ous to the sugar, especially of pectiue, which is not coagulated by hot water alone,
lime or some other suitable agent may be added to the water or liquor."

On page 504 of the same work, in speaking of the alum process, it says :

" After the separation of the alum it is possible to neutralize the acid liquor with
cltalk (carbonate of lime) only, and this has been done on a large scale for a consider-
able time. The use of chalk has an advantage over lime in that should an excess be
added it does no harm to the sirup beyond simply increasing the insoluble deposit in the
filters:'

A description of the identical advantage claimed by Mr. Swenson in his patent,
lines 52 to 58, * * * "it is possible to neutralize the acid liquor with some other
alkaline body instead of lime; among other substances which have been tried for
this purpose are ammonia, carbonate of ammonia, baryta, carbonate of baryta, stron-
tia, carbonate of strontia, magnesia, carbonate of magnesia." These are the carbon-
ates of alkaline earths mentioned in the patent, lines 58 to 63.

In a pamphlet published in Cincinnati in 1876, entitled " Extraction du Jus Sucre"
des Plantes saccharifdres, par Diffusion," the author of which is G. Bouscaren, is
found, on page 2, a description of the alleged improvement patented by Swenson, and
it speaks of the addition of chalk (carbonate of lime) to either the water of the dif-
fusion battery or to the pulp of the cane itself before it goes into the battery.

65

The following is a translation of the paragraph referred to :

"The solidification of the albumen, pectine, and other elements injurious to the
sugar being made in the tissue of the pulp itself by the addition of a proper quantity
of chalk, either to the water of alimentation or to the pulp itself before its introduc-
tion into the macerators."

Of the English patents that have been issued may be noted the following: In 1813
No. 3754, to one Howard, the use of alum, lime, and chalk.

In 1874, No. 1730, to Johnson, the use of alkaline carbonates prior to treatment of
the sugar with alcohol.

In 1874, No. 1989, to James Duncan, the neutralization of the free acids arising in
saccharine solutions by means of carbonate of lime.

III.

From the foregoing statements the following conclusions ma'y be drawn :

(1) That the above patent is held by Mr. Swenson in trust for the use and benefit
of the Government and its citizens, the discovery patented having been made by him
while specially employed in experimentation, and under an implied contract granting
to the Government all property in the results of such experimentation.

(2) That the thing patented was a suggestion made by an employ 6 specially em-
ployed for the purpose, and which only amounted to the curing of a defect in a part
of a process already planned in its entirety by another, and which of itself was not a
complete invention, and which suggestion would belong to the inventor of the process
under whom he was working.

(3) That the patent is invalid in that the thing patented is not new.

Under the first head it is sufficient to say that Congress having authorized the
making of these sugar experiments at public expense, they are made for the benefit
of the public at large, and the results that spring from them become the property of
the Government, to the free use of which all citizens are equally entitled. Persons
employed in the carrying on of such experiments, so authorized, by the acceptance of
the employment waive all personal right to any discoveries they may make in the
course of their employment, and by implication contract that such discoveries shall
become the property of the Government. It would be incompatible with the object of
the act of Congress authorizing the making of experiments, that any personal prop-
erty to discoveries made by person semployed under the law should be retained by
them, for, if so, then the end had in view, the general benefit of the public, would be
destroyed, and public moneys would be expended merely to enable private persons to
make discoveries for their own personal use and advantage, and not for the general
welfare of the people. Congress would be granting public moneys for private use,
and this it can not constitutionally do.

While there are no adjudicated cases bearing upon the right of a person employed
by the Government to make experiments to discoveries made by him in the course of
experiments, there is a dictum by Justice Field, in the case of the United States v.
Burns, 12 Wallace, page 246, where he says : " If an officer in the military service, not
especially employed to make experiments with a view to suggested improvements, devises a
valuable improvement, he is entitled to the benefit of it, and to letters patent," etc.

This may be held to imply the converse, that where such officer was employed to
experiment he would not be entitled to patent his improvement.

Under the second head, it is sufficient to state that the suggestion made by Mr.
Swenson makes a case on all fours with the general doctrine laid down in the leading
case of Agawam v. Woolen Company (7 Wallace, 583) on the relations between em-
ployers and employe's, and that such improvement as he suggested would be for the
use and benefit of his employer.

The doctrine is thus stated in the opinion by Justice Cl fford:

" Persons employed, as much as employers, are entitled to their own independent
inventions, but where the employer has conceived the plan of an invention and is en-

15449-No. 17 5

66

gaged in experiments to perfect it, no suggestions from an employe, not amounting to
a new method or arrangement, which in itself is a complete invention, is sufficient to
deprive the employer of the exclusive property in the perfected improvements. But
where the suggestions go to make up a perfect and complete machine, embracing the
substance of all that is embodied in the patent subsequently issued to the party to
whom the suggestions were made, the patent is invalid, because the real invention or
discovery belongs to another," and cases cited.

Under the third head it is unnecessary to comment, for the thing patented no.t being
new, the patent is invalid.

IV.

REMEDY.

The possession by -Mr. Swenson of this patent has a serious and damaging effect on
the progress of the manufacture of sugar from sorghum cane in this country. It is a
cloud on the title of the people of this country to make use of a discovery which the
Government has at public expense made. Cougress, in authorizing the expending of
$225,000 to promote this manufacture, was mindful of its great importance and the
benefits to arise from utilizing sorghum cane, which could be grown over an immense
area of this country, and make valuable thousands of acres of land, and at the same
time cause the production of the home supply of sugar.

This new enterprise has received a damaging blow, and it is desirable that the law
department of the Government should take all necessary steps to protect this enter-
prise, to remove the cloud that to-day prevents the free use of this manufacture as
perfected by the Department of Agriculture, and secure to the people the full benefit
of all its works.

It is suggested that where a patent has been improperly obtained by a person em-
ployed by the Government to carry on experiment for discoveries made in the course
of the experiments, the patentee may be restrained by injunction from appropriating
to his own use any of the rights granted by the patent. This is the view as held by
Attorney-General Gushing in an opinion to be found in volume 7, Opinions Attorneys-
General, page 656.

PART II.
EXPERIMENTS AT RIO GRANDE, N. J.

REPORT OF H. A.. HUGHES.

SIR: I have the honor to present herewith my report, as superintend-
ent of the experiments conducted at Rio Grande the past season, on the
manufacture of sugar from sorghum.

The Hughes Sugar House Company is located at Eio Grande, Cape
May County, N. J. The building of this company is constructed of brick
and iron, 30 feet square, and fully equipped with machinery for extract-
ing and working into merchantable products all of the sugar from 15
tons of cane per day.

The machinery consists of a cleaning and shredding apparatus, a dif-
fusion battery, an open evaporator, vacuum pan, hot room, wagons, and
centrifugal.

The cane is cut into sections, freed from leaves, sheaths, and seed tops,
and passed in at once to the shredding knives. The leaves and seed
tops are also separated and collected into different receptacles. All
this machinery is automatic, and the capacity of the cleaning apparatus
was proved to be equal to the cleaning of 44 tons in twenty-two hours.
It worked without delay or repairs of any description, and the wear
and tear was so slight that at the close of the season its condition ap-
peared to be as good as when first started. All this apparatus had been
thoroughly tested during the season of 1886,

The shredded cane is packed into perforated baskets and it is then
ready for the diffusion battery.

This battery differs radically from those in ordinary use, and was
planned in 1886. During this season its work was not perfectly satis-
factory — concentration of juice being gained only at a serious loss of
sugar in the waste products— but after the close of the season and when
the battery was properly managed, it was proven and the tests recorded,
which have shown that it can extract practically all of the sugar in the
cane at an expense for evaporation of 10 per cent, only in excess of that
for mill juice; this result is satisfactory, and is believed to better thaa
that given by any other battery. The diffusion juice from this battery

68

was evaporated in an open pan until one-half of its water was removed;
it was then drawn into the vacuum, still further concentrated, Drained
in the same pan, and struck into sugar wagons in the hot room. The
centrifugal machine separated the crude molasses from the raw sugar,
leaving it in a condition suitable for refiners7 uses. Storage tanks, set-
tling tanks, filter presses, defecators, clarifiers, and chemicals of any
kind were not used. The vacuum pan and centrifugal machine do not
difler from well-known forms.

THE CROP.

Eighty acres of cane were planted for the use of the mill, and of this
7 acres were grown by neighboring farmers and the balance by the
company. Varieties planted were Amber, White African, Kansas
Orange, and Late Orange, from which 910 pounds sugar and 80 gallons
of molasses per acre were made. In this account is included the un-
ripe eane used in breaking iu the house and all damaged cane. The
tonnage far exceeded our greatest expectations. This was occasioned
by carefully planting the hills closer and giving it good attention, to-
gether with favorable rains. The cost of raising the eane was $11.62
per acre. This includes the hauling out of fertilizers and placing them
upon the laud, which consisted of 150 pounds muriate of potash per
aero, and rotten chips from previous seasons, together with a little
stable manure in spots. The cost of potash and chips is not included
in the above. The cost of cutting the cane and bringing it to the fac-
tory was 45 cents per ton. We paid $3 per day for the use of teams
and farm hands, and laborers were paid $1.25 per day.

The average yield was 16J tons per acre. All the farmers7 cane was
worked and -7.;>S acres of that raised by the company. Over -17 acres
were loft in the fields. One tract (S.43 acres) averaged -5 tons of cano
per acre, from which 1,400 pounds of raw sugar and 120 gallons of mo-
lasses per acre were extracted.

Tart of the field was used in breaking in the house.

The yields of the farmers' crops varied widely, the maximum being
1,970 pounds of raw sugar and li*i> gallons of molasses per acre. This
was made from 17 tons and 075 pounds of field cane. The term " field
eane" means neither stripped nor topped. The minimum was 540
pounds of sugar and CO gallons of molasses. All the seed used by the
farmers was the same. The variations in yield were caused by the dif-
ference in cultivation. Other yields were as follows per acre :

First.

Second.

Third.

Fourth.

Sugar . . pounds

1 970

1 560

1 444

1 CM

Mol*sso3 ... . calious

ISQ

1°0

60

116

The company grew this cane on shares, giving the farmers one-halt'
the products, viz, sugar, molasses, and seed. The basis of settlement

G9

Was for raw sugar 4 cents PIT pound and molasses at Ho cents per gallon.
Consequently the- four best acres yielded — reduced to a cash basis — as
follows :

Quantity.

Amount

Total.

EphraimHildrith:

....pounds

1 970

$78.80

. . gallons

1:0

30.00

£$108.80

Jost'ph Ku-hardson:

. pounds

1 560

62 40

Mul'i^st'* :it ","> ivnts

gallons

1'JO

30.00

£ 92. 40

William llollin.H'shoad:

pounds

1 444

57 76

i

Molasses at ''.") couts

. . . . gallons

80

20.00

> 77. 76

John r>io\vn :

pounds

1 254

50 10

;

Mola.^i"-* at "f> cents

. . . <rallons

11G

29.00

£ 79.16

This does not include the seed which has not been thrashed.

WORKING SEASON.

The company commenced breaking in its machinery on September 5
and closed on November 8, making fifty-two days. Twelve days in the
commencement of the season were consumed in training men to man-
age the new machinery. The working season was the most unfavorable
since 18SO. Frost occurred in the last week in September, but did little
damage. Ice one-half inch thick was found on October 15. The crop
at that time was growing beautifully and the sugar tests rising rapidly,
and the day following this freeze the leaves turned white and died.

At that time we were working on the Kansas Orange fields. This
variety did not deteriorate for several days, but at the expiration of this
time it gradually declined until October 28, when the purity of the
juice was reduced so low that it did not warrant our working any longer
for sugar. During this period there were several frosts.

Another effect of the ice on this variety of cane was to make it un-
able to withstand the repeated heavy gales of wind, which finally blew
it down and broke it badly.

It was especially our desire to study the effects of frost on the differ-
ent varieties, and we were fully aware that we could at any time in-
crease our average sugar per acre by leaving this variety and working
the Late Orange. After October 28 we commenced cutting on the Late
Orange fields, which had withstood frost and ice in marked contrast
with the other cane. This variety stood the freezes and thaws with
very little change, and at the time of the closing of the house it was still
up to the average of the season in purity.

The cane was worked after this date at intervals in the diffusion
battery until November 22. The cane brought in at this time was
frozen solidly, but the juice was in good condition. Warm weather hav-
ing intervened from the 22d to the 20th the cane was sampled and
tested on November 20 with the intention of making a run for sugar

70

on December 1. Other matters having interfered this was not carried
out. There is not the slightest doubt that good sugar crystals could
have been obtained until December 1.

This cane has at last been weakened by the unusually severe weather
during the past week. It is falling down badly and is only fit for sirup
on this date, December 7.

The sugar per acre could have been increased fully 23 per cent, on this
season's work by good extraction. It must not be overlooked that the
raw sugar made this season would have to be reduced from 20 to 25 per
cent, in order to make it chemically pure.

Another source of loss to which I desire to call your attention is in
the harvesting of the seed. The seed tops are cut off, spread on the
fields to dry, stacked up, and afterwards thrashed. By this method we
rarely obtain more than 1 J bushels of seed from a ton of field cane.
There is a constant loss in the field during the drying by the seed shell-
ing out and the ravaging of birds. Field mice and rats also attack the
stacks. Samples of seed tops carefully saved from these same fields
show an average yield, on well developed canes, of 3 bushels per ton.
If this seed could be saved it would be of sufficient value to pay the
coal bill for working up the crop in this place.

In making the above statements I wish it to be distinctly understood
that neither time nor expense was spared in order to make these rec-
ords accurate 5 the house being frequently delayed in order that the
records might be secured.

I believe that a ton of field cane is too uncertain a factor to be used
as a standard for calculation, as it varies considerably in wet and dry
weather. Wagons containing 3,000 pounds of cane, as it comes from
the field, will increase to 3,400 pounds and more by being rained on.
There is a variation in the weight of the cane before and after frost;
also in the percentage of leaves of the large and small canes. For these
reasons it is better to use clean chips prepared for the battery or an
acre of ground.

It might be worth while to state that this sugar house, with slight
alteration, could be made to work 25 tons per day, having frequently
worked at this rate from six to eight hours.

Believing that sorghum-sugar. manufacture is to be an established in-
dustry and that reports of this nature will have an attraction for the
general public, I have written in this simple style and tried to avoid
technicalities. Those who wish the details I refer to the reports of your
chemists, Messrs. Broadbent and Edson, who, I believe, have faithfully
recorded the workings of the house; also to the report of the experi-
mental station of New Jersey, soon to be issued.
Kespectfully,

H. A. HUGHES,

Superintendent.

Hon. NORMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, D. G.

71

SUMMARY OF CHEMICAL WORK AT RIO GRANDE.

(Abstract of report of Hubert Edson.]

The manufacturing season at Rio Grande commenced September 5 and closed No-
vember 8. The analyses of juices were begun Septembers and continued throughout
the season.

On October 15 there fell a heavy frost, one of the earliest known in Rio Grande,
which completely killed all the leaves on the cane and stopped the growth of all
the unripe fields. The late orange was the only variety which was not seriously in-
jured by the frost and the cold weather following it. This hardy cane, although the
frost touched it before it was matured, held its sucrose to the end of the season, even
notwishstaudiug two slight freezes.

It will be noticed from Table III that the extraction of sugar by the battery was
very poor. This arose from improper management of the battery by the men em-
ployed in the diffusion room, much sugar being thrown out with the exhausted chips
from this cause.

EXPERIMENTS IN CRYSTALLIZING SUGARS.

All the sugars as first run from the centrifugal were full of " smear," and after the
regular season had closed experiments were made as to the advisability of re-crystal-
lizing the sugar, but it was found that the loss in weight was too great to make it
profitable, only 8,329 pounds of re-crystallized sugars being obtained from nearly
double that amount of smear sugar.

In Table VIII are found the analyses of the re-crystallized sugars.

On November 19 and 22 experiments were made with the diffusion battery to see if
it was possible to obtain a better extraction than the season's work had given.

An extra cell was made and placed outside the battery. Then instead of emptying
one cell of diffusion juice at a time the two heaviest juices were drawn into the out-
side cell. By drawing off two cells at a time two baskets of fresh chips could be im-
mersed each time in the outside cell, and the diffusion juice be brought up within 1°
Brix of the mill juice, and at the same time an excellent extraction obtained. Both
the days in which these experiments were made were very cold. This, of course,
made it difficult to keep the battery at a sufficiently high temperature for a proper
diffusion.

In the appended table the degree Brix is all that is given, as the juices were not
used :

Chip juice.

Diffusion
juice.

Exhausted
chip juice.

Average degree Brix:
November 19 . . ...

15.40

14.65

1.30

13 42

12 66

1 48

15.18

13. 79

.88

These experiments were conducted by Mr. Hughes and Dr. Neale, chemist of the
New Jersey experimental station. The degrees Brix were taken by Dr. Neale and
myself.

A sample of chip juice was polarized and found to contain 8.98 per cent. sucrosOf
with a purity of 59.27.

72

RESULTS OF ANALYSES.

TABLE 1. — Analyses of juice from fresh

Number of analyses 61

Per cent.

Mean sucrose 8. 98

Mean glucose 3. 24

Mean total solids (by spindle) 14. 02

Sucrose :

Maximum 12. 28

Minimum 4.71

Glucose :

Maximum 4. 45

Minimum 2.07

Total solids :

Maximum 17.80

Minimum * 10. 45

TABLE 2. — Analyses of diffusion juices.

Number of analyses 63

Per cent.

Mean sucrose (5. 93

Mean glucose 2. 86

Mean total solids (spindle) 11. 18

Sucrose :

Maximum 10. 02

Minimum 3.89

Glucose :

Maximum 3.97

Minimum 1. 32

Total solids :

Maximum 14. 40

Minimum 8. 38

TABLE 3.— Sirups.

Number of analyses 55

Per cent.

Mean sucrose 18. 68

Mean glucose 8.67

Mean total solids (spindle) 32.40

Sucrose :

Maximum 25. 26

Minimum 10.78

Glucose :

Maximum 15.70

Minimum ^ 3. 81

Total solids :

Maximum 43. 16

Minimum 19. 88

TABLE 4. — Exhausted chips.

Number of analyses ' 58

Per cent.

Mean sucrose 2.46

Mean glucose 98

Mear total solids (spindle) 4.03

73

TABLE 4.— Exhausted chips— Continued.

Sucrose : Per cent.

Maximum 4.23

Minimum 81

Glucose :

Maximum » 1. 62

Minimum 30

Total solids :

Maximum 6. 64

Minimum 1.33

TABLE 5. — Masse cuiies.

Number of analyses 6

Per cent

Mean sucrose 55. 76

Mean glucose 23. 44

Mean water 18.50

Mean ash 4. 44

TABLE 6.— Raw sugars.

Number of analyses 14

Per cent

Mean sucrose 73.80

Mean glucose 13.63

Mean water 5.89

Mean ash 2.56

TABLE 7. — Molasses.

Number of analyses 14

Per cent.

Mean sucrose 35.48

Mean glucose 32.20

Mean water 34.72

Mean ash , f , 5.45

TABLE 8. — Re-cry stalUzed sugars.

Number of analyses 9

Per cent.

Mean sucrose 90.73

Mean glucose 4.63

Mean water 4. 19

Mean ash 71

(NOTE. — The analyses of masse cuites sugars and molasses are only partial. The
complete analyses will be given in Bulletin 18.)

ESTIMATES OF COST OF SUGAR FACTORIES MADE BY MR. H. A. HUGHES.
SMALL CENTRAL SUGAR HOUSE.

Cost and summary of machinery.

One vacuum-pan, 4 feet $850.00

One vacuum-pump 500. 00

Thirty sugar-wagons, at $14 720.00

Two Weston centrifugals, complete with mixer, at $850 "... 1, 700.00

Four tanks, water, sirup, dumps, and extra, at $25 100.00

One 50 horse-power boiler 600. 00

One engine, 15 horse-power 400. 00

Pipe-fittings 800.00

Two boiler feed-pumps, at $90 180. 00

One water-pump 200.00

Two sirup-pumps, at $90 180.00

74

Coat and summary of machinery — Continued.

Extra work, machinist two montbs and labor $520. 00

Buildings 3,000.00

Freights, lights and extras 250. 00

Total 9,000.00

Capacity of house per day.

Six wagons on 1,080 gallons molasses worked into masse cuite for an aver-
age, say 4 pounds sugar to a gallon, or pounds . . 4, 320

And 45 per cent, sirup gallons.. 488

For 260 days, from September 1 to July 1 pounds . . 1, 123, 200

For 260 days, from September 1 to July 1 gallons.. 126,880

Crew, cost of manning, and cost per gallon.

Day shift : Per day-
One fireman $1.50

One centrifugal 1. 50

One sirup and coopering 2. 50

One sugar boiler 3. 00

Night shift :

One fireman 1. 50

One pan man 1. 50

11.50
Three tons soft coal, at $2.50 7.50

19.00

Cost per gallon 1. 77

Twenty-five gallons for 1 ton field cane cents . . 44^

SMALL AUXILIARY PLANTATION HOUSE.

One diffusion battery, 50 to 75 tons, complete $5,600.00

Cutting and cleaning apparatus 800. 00

One double effect 2,500.00

Two juice-pumps, at $90 180.00

Seven small tanks 100.00

One large tank 25.00

Engine, 8 horse-power 200.00

Boilers, 100 horse-power 1,000.00

Two boiler feed-pumps, at $125 250.00

One water-pump 250. 00

One hot-water pump 125. 00

Pipe-fittings 500.00

Building one-story shed 1,000. 00

Labor, freight, and incidentals 800.00

Total 13,330,00

Capacity per day.

Lowest estimate, 50 tons field cane ; 25 gallons molasses, 45 to 56 per cent, test for
each ton field cane worked; 25 gallons for each ton X 50= 1,250 per day for eighty
days =100,000 gallons, or 4 acres of ordinary cane per acre for each day; or 320 acres
per season of eighty days.

Three such plants would supply 300,000 gallons in a working season.

75

Crew, cost of manufacture, and cost per ton.

One man throwing cane on carrier $1.25

One man on seed topper 1. 25

One man filling baskets 1. 25

One man on eleventh cell 1.25

One man hanging on baskets 1.25

One man center 1. 25

One man bagasse 1. 25

One man double effect 1. 50

One man firing 1.50

One man driving away seed and leaves 1.25

Total 10 men 13.00

One horse on cart 1.00

14. 00X2 = $28. 00

Labor 28.00

Coal, 5 tons, at $2.50 12.50

40.50
Or 80.1 cents per ton for labor, etc.

RECAPITULATION.

Capital invested, small central house $9,000

Capital invested, three small auxiliaries, $13,300 39,990

Total - 48,990

Tons.
Amount of cane worked, 150 tons for eighty days 12,000

Product.

12,000 tons, yielding 25 gallons molasses each gallons.. 300,000

300,000 gallons molasses, yielding 4 pounds sugar each pounds.. 1,200,000

And 45 per cent, molasses , gallons.. 135,000

1,200,000 pounds, at 4 cents $48,000

135,000 gallons, at 20 cents 27,000

18,000 bushels seed, at 40 cents 7,200

Total 82,200

Cost of production.

Cents.

Auxiliary house, per ton 80.01

Central house, per ton 44. 25

124.26
Cost of packages, per ton 30.00

154. 26X12, 000 = $18, 511

Farmers' half, $41,100 or 3.43 per ton; the company's half, $41,100, less $18,511,
$22,589 for interest, insurance, superintendence, etc.

In working 1,000 tons a day there should be ten 100 to 175 ton batteries and a large
central house. Auxiliary houses of this size would cost complete about $20,000 each
and the central house would cost without bone black $90,000. There would also be a
corresponding reduction in working expenses.

PAET III.
EXPERIMENTS AT LAWRENCE, LA.

The Department of Agriculture having determined to continue the
experiments in the manufacture of sugar by diffusion in Louisiana,
Mr. E. C. Barthelemy, of New Orleans, was appointed general superin-
tendent of the work January 27, 1887.

Following is a copy of the order assigning him to this duty :

JANUARY 27, 1887.

E. C. Bartbelemy, of Louisiana, is hereby appointed general superintendent of the
diffusion experiments to be conducted in Louisiana by tbis Department.

NORMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner.

The following instructions were sent with the order to Mr. Barthe-
lemy:

JANUARY 27, 1887.

DEAR SIR : I inclose you herewith your formal appointment as general superin-
tendent of tbe experiments in diffusion wbicb are to be made in Louisiana next
autumn.

At present your instructions will be of a simple nature.

The contract for tbe building of the machinery bas been awarded to tbe Colwell
Iron Works of New York, the lowest responsible home bidders.

Tbis company bas also taken tbe contract of erecting the battery in Louisiana and
putting it in order for use.

First of all you will consult with prominent sugar planters and others interested
in the matter in respect of the best place for locating this experimental machinery.
Keep in view that good double-effect and strike pans and convenient crystallizing
rooms, etc., must be bad.

I expect to visit Louisiana early in March, and by that time you will have secured
such information as will enable me to decide upon tbe location at once.

Immediately thereafter the machinery and building material now at the "Her-
mitage" plantation will be transferred to the new quarters, and then the apparatus
now at Fort Scott, which is to be used in Louisiana, will be secured. Tbe details of
this work I will send you later. As soon as you enter upon the performance of your
duties. February 1, you will proceed to Judge Emil Rost's plantation and make a
careful study of the machinery on hand, and submit to me, at your earliest possible
convenience, a full report thereon, and add thereto your own judgment concerning the
suitability of the place for the proposed experiments.

It is my earnest wish that all persons interested in the success of thu sugar indus-
try should heartily co-operate in this work.

Very respectfully,

NORMAN J. COLMAN.

E. C. BARTHELEMY,

New Orleans, La.

78

On February 18, 1887, the following additional instructions were sent
to Mr. Barthelemy :

First of all, however, I desire to secure a comparative test of diffusion with mill-
ing. When all is in readiness for work,, only a few days will be required to make
this test, and therefore it would not interfere very much with the regular milling
work.

I have contracted for a 12-cell circular Lattery, to be built on the plan for the
Sangerhausen apparatus. All the plans and specifications for the new battery have
been purchased by the contractors (the Colwell Iron Works of New York) from the
Sangerhausen Company. The battery is to be erected by the Colwell Company, and
delivered to the Department there ready for use on or before the first of October. I
think it is important to select a place, such as you describe Judge Host's to be, where
all the evaporating and other machinery for working the juices is ready for work.

I propose to make the machinery as simple as possible and to devote all our ener-
gies to solving the problem of diffusion.

I expect to go to Louisiana early in March and hope to be able to make some favor-
able arrangement without delay. The only hope for the success of our experiments
is to work with some one who will use every endeavor to make success possible.

The work of the Department will be purely experimental. If it is successful the
planter will reap the full benefit of the success ; if it is not, no one will suffer any
loss.

I do not think I shall ask for more than ten days for the experimental work, and
would like to have five days of that time jiear the first of the season and the other
five near the middle of it.

Do you know of any other place where there is a complete apparatus for sugar
making which you think would be more favorable than Judge Eost's ?
Respectfully,

NORMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner.

In March, 1887, the honorable Commissioner of Agriculture visited
Louisiana to consult with a committee of the Sugar Planters7 Association
of that State respecting a suitable plantation on which the work should
be done. This committee was composed of the following gentlemen,
viz : Hon. D. F. Kenner, John Dymond, Henry McCall, T. S. Wilkin-
son, L. C. Keever, W. B. Schmidfc, J. 0. Morris, VV. 0. Stubbs.

The Commissioner of Agriculture visited, in company with the gentle-
men named, the plantations which were thought suitable for the exper-
imental work. After a careful examination the committee made the fol-
lowing report :

Whereas the Government of the United States has determined to test the practical
effect of the diffusion process upon the sugar manufacturing interests of the country,
and Hon. N. J. Colman, Commissioner of Agriculture, accompanied by Chief Chemist,
Dr. H. W. Wiley, having come to Louisiana to arrange for a competitive test with the
methods now in use in our State, and Commissioner Colman having requested the aid
of the Sugar Planter's Association to select a locality for making the test, the associa-
tion appointed the undersigned a committee for that purpose. We have therefore
inquired into and examined all the places available uuder the conditions required by
the Department of Agriculture.

One of the principal considerations that has guided the committee in making the
selection has been to choose that locality which has furnished the most favorable re-
sults under the old system, in order that the test should be as severe, as thorough, as
complete, and as decisive as possible.

79

We have examined the various places seemingly available on the Mississippi River,
and have carefully inquired concerning those on the Teche or Attakapas country, and
after careful examination and thorough consideration have determined to recom-
mend Governor H. C. Warinoth's Magnolia plantation, in the parish of Plaquemines, as
the most suitable locality, from the fact that it would afford the severest competitive
test of any place in the State, as the yield on this plantation during several years
has been greater per ton of cane ground than on any other place brought under our
observation.
March 16, 1887.

JOHN DYMOND, Chairman.
D. F. KENNER.
HENRY MCCALL.
T. S. WILKINSON.
L. C. KEEVER.
W. B. SCHMIDT.
J. C. MORRIS.
W. C. STUBBS.

I certify that the above is a true copy of the report of this committee made to the
Sugar Planters' Association, April 14, 1887.

JOHN DYMOND,

Chairman.

The superior advantages afforded by Governor Warmoth's sugar-
house, the surplus boiler service at his command, and the facilities
which he offered for an independent working of the diffusion apparatus
were the considerations which led the committee to select his place as
the one most suitable to the character of the contemplated work.

At the request of the Commissioner there was appointed by Mr. Ken-
ner, president of the Sugar Growers7 Association, an advisory committee
to assist those in charge of the work, and thus to help to its successful
completion. This committee consisted of Hon. John Dymond, of Belair,
and Henry McCall, of Donaldsonville. These gentlemen visited the
plantation from time to time during the progress of the work, both of
their own accord and by the request of the Commissioner. Following
are the reports which they made of the progress of the work :

BELAIR, LA., July 15, 1887.

DEAR SIR: In accordance with your request in your favor of 18th instant, I have
visited Magnolia plantation, Tuesday, 12th, and Wednesday, 13th instant. The work
seemed generally to be \vell advanced. The house was completed, except the floor.
The carbonic-acid pump, filter-press pump, and cutter-engine were all in position and
needed only connecting up.

The foundations for the diffusers were being built and will soon be completed. The
excavation for cutter was made, but not yet walled up. The lime-kiln was finished,
and the washers and connections will be completed this week.

If the diffusion battery comes along promptly, it would seem probable that the
whole plant should be ready by October 1, as anticipated.

In consultation with the gentlemen in charge of the work, as you suggested, the
matter of a water supply for the diffusers came up. They named 1,200 gallons, I be-
lieve, as being the contemplated reservoir of water. It would seem to me desirable to
have much more than this, as this limited supply might be exhausted any moment,
' and it would seem a pity to have the success of diffusion dependent on a water supply
which might be cut off in an hour or two from some quite trivial cause. I therefore
suggested a 10,000 or 12,000 gallon wooden cistern, which could probably be erected

80

for $-300, and this would insure the continuance of the experiments during six or eight
hours any way, and during that time any accident interfering with the water supply
might be overcome.

As one of the most important points to be determined would be the capacity of the
battery for twenty-four consecutive hours, it would be unfortunate to have any stop-
page for water.

Always glad to act on your suggestions, I am,

Yours, truly,

JOHN DYMOND,

Of Advisory Committee.

Hon. NORMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner of Agriculture.

BELAIR, LA., August 2, 1887.

DEAR SIR : I have a letter from Mr. McCall, that he will go with me to Magnolia
August 12, and that he can not well go soouer. We shall then report at once to you
as fully as practicable.

There is considerable apprehension of danger to the diffusion experiments now felt
here, owing to the newspaper report of the choking of the cutters used in Demerara,
which cutters are the same used, or contemplated using here.

In response to your request for suggestions, would it not be well to promptly find,
by telegram or otherwise, what the exact cause of the trouble is, and whether or not
it can be remedied.

This seems to be a serious matter.
Yours, truly,

JOHN DY:.;OND.
Hon. N. J. COLMAN,

Commissioner of Agriculture.

NEW ORLEANS, August 15, 1887.

DEAR SIR : Your favor of the 3d instant to Mr. Dymond came duly to hand, and
on the 12th instpnt we went to Magnolia and carefully inspected the work done and
now going on in the matter of the proposed experiments in diffusion, and we would
respectfully report:

That we found the cane-cutter in position, as also the engine for driving it. The
shafting and counter-shafting are not yet in place.

The boot of the chip conveyer is in position, but the conveyer is not yet erected,
nor is there yet any device to deliver the chips from the cutter to the boot of the con-
veyer, and we understand Mr. Bartheleny to say that none has been provided.

The diffusers were all in position upon the foundations and columns, but were not
connected by any pipe-work, and no platforms or floors were yet constructed about
them.

The cars for the discharge of the chips were there, but the circular track for them
was not yet down.

The ccld- water-supply cistern is not erected.

The carbonating tanks are in position and connected together and ready for con-
nection with the diffusion battery.

The air-compressing pump and the air-receiver, to dry the exhausted chips, were
there, and the former in position.

The lime-kiln is completed except the placing of the top casting in position and the
erecting of the house and platforms around it.

The washing arrangement for the carbonic-acid gas and the pump to force the gas
into the carbonating tanks are all in position and connected.

The pump to take the juice from the carbouating tanks and force the same through
the filter presses is in position, as are also the filter presses, except one, that we were.

81

told was to come from Fort Scott. The connections with the presses were not com-
pleted.

The sulphuring tanks, and also the sulphur stoves and sulphur air pump, were in
position, and the filter presses for the sulphured juice were also in position.

To write of the matter more generally, we should say that while there seems yet
much to do in the way of details, yet we think excellent progress has been made, and
that unless some unforeseen delay occurs the apparatus will be ready in due time for
the experiments.

The cane-cutter is a beautiful machine, but its complete failure in Demerara, where
its duplicate was used, and whence we now have the report of Mr. Quintin Hogg, the
proprietor, that it took forty-eight hours to slice 108 tons of cane, indicates its com-
plete uselessness for the purpose, as it is now constructed.

This excites considerable anxiety here, as with all of our machinery now in position
we are absolutely without any cutter that can cut the canes.

Other cutters may demand different arrangements of gearing and shafting that
might result in delay if not at once considered and provided for.

Mr. Barthelemy thinks that the difficulty with the present cutter arises from the
fact that the short ends of the canes can not be held in position for the cutters to act
on them, and that a system of spring rollers might be added to hold these ends in posi-
tion until the slicing is completed.

This seems plausible, and it might be well for you to give him authority to experi-
ment in that direction, but it seems to be almost too late to experiment now, and
especially so when we know that the failure of the same machine has terminated the
experiments in Demerara, making it a disaster. Mr. Hogg reports they return to the
cane-mill process there until proper cutters are provided. He does not seem disposed
to experiment with the cutters.

It would seem extremely desirable to provide the cutters that succeeded in Java, as
you suggest, and further to provide those you now have at Fort Scott, as you suggest,
as the whole experiment may be placed in peril from these difficulties in cutting. We
shall be pleased to be of any further service we can, and remain,
Yours, respectfully,

JOHN DYMOND,
HENRY MCCALL,
Advisory Committee.

Dr. H. W. WILEY,

Chemist, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

CANE-SLICER.

In order to secure a multiple feed for a single cutter it was deter-
mined to adopt the horizontal disk system. Cutters of this kind not
being made in this country, it was necessary to purchase one in Europe.

The cutter built by the Sangerhauser Company, of Sangerhausen,
Germany, was selected. This cutter was guarantied to give from 200
to 250 tons of chips per twenty-four hours, suitable for diffusion.

This sliciug-machine, having been tried in Demerara in the early
summer, proved inefficient. To guard against failure from lack of a
proper cutter, another machine which had already proved successful in
Java was ordered from the Sudenburg Company of Madgeburg.

The small cutter, with a horizontal disk, tried at Fort Scott last year,
was also sent to New York for certain alterations, and thence to Mag-
nolia. Unfortunately the new knives sent with the machine ha4 not
15440— Fo. 17 G

82

been properly tempered, and this prevented the use of this cutter for
the preliminary experiments.

Mr. E. Sieg, of New Orleans, who had had large experience in work-
ing cane-cutters in Louisiana in 1874 and the following years, was also
instructed to build a cutter with vertical disk and multiple feed. We
found, however, that the time at his disposal was too short to permit
the building of such a machine as he desired.

On October 6, 1 received the following instructions :

You are hereby instructed to go to Fort Scott, Kans., and after inspecting the work
of the Department there in the manufacture of sugar, you will proceed to Lawrence,
La., to conduct the work of the Department at that place in the application of diffu-
sion to the extraction of sugar from sugar-cane .

You are also authorized to travel between Magnolia Station and New Orleans as
often as may be necessary to secure the proper conduct of public business.

Very respectfully,

NORMAN J. COLMAN,

Commissioner.

In obedience to the above instructions I reached Magnolia on the
evening of October 17, 1887. The experimental work was conducted
without being complicated by the use of any process or machinery in
which any one in the employment of the Department had any patented
or financial interest whatever. The sole object in view was to benefit
those engaged in the manufacture of sugar in all parts of the country.
Experiments conducted at public expense should, in my opinion, be for
the public good, and not for the benefit of a private individual or cor-
poration.

On the morning of the 19th the diffusion building was badly injured
by a cyclone. The water tank to supply the battery, together with the
tower supporting it, was blown on to Governor Warmoth's sugar-house,
causing great damage. Nearly a month was required to repair the dam-
age and restore the building and apparatus to the condition in which it
was before the storm.

The delays incident to the working of new machinery were numerous.
The original plan contemplated having all the machinery ready by the
1st of October, thus permitting a series of preliminary trials extending
over a month before the regular season began.

Instead of this, however, unavoidable delays, incident to the imper-
fections of the machinery and the damage of the storm, postponed even
the preliminary experiments until the beginning of December.

A recital of the details of these delays would only lengthen the re-
port without adding anything to its value. It must be said, however,
in this connection that the gentlemen associated with me worked ear-
nestly and faithfully through all the discouragements attending the
preparation of the machinery.

Mr. Ernest Schulze, representing the Sangerhauser Company, was
also present, and rendered valuable assistance in putting his cane-
slicer in working order.

83

The numerous defects in the battery and the cutter having been
remedied, the apparatus of the Colwell Company was accepted on De-
cember 11, 1887.

Mr. A. W. Colwell, the president of the company, was present during
the 'final trials of the battery, arid rendered valuable assistance in
putting it into working order. The defects in both cutter and battery
were of a minor character, but were such as to greatly delay the use of
new machinery for new purposes. The final working of all the machin-
ery was excellent and satisfactory. The season's experiments, how-
ever, disclosed many improvements of a seemingly trivial nature, but
by the adoption of which a more economical working of the diffusion
process can be secured. These improvements will be discussed in
another place.

The first results from the experiments were obtained from the run of
December 3, 1887.

The juice was treated with .3 per cent, its weight of lime, and after
the precipitation of the lime with carbonic dioxide, an amount of lignite
equal to 10 per cent, of the weight of the sugar present was added.

The juice filtered readily through the presses, forming firm, hard
cakes. The filtered juice was treated with phosphate of soda, 15 pounds
of this salt being added for each 5,000 pounds of juice.

The phosphate produced an abundant flocculent precipitate, which
filtered easily through the twin filter presses, giving a juice of remark
able limpidity. The masse-cuite, however, was dark, and the molasses
much inferior in color to that made by the use of bone-black and ordi-
nary clarification.

The phosphate of soda did not produce as favorable results as had
been expected, and its further use was discontinued.

Following ar« the data obtained in Jhe first run :

First diffusion run, December 3, 1887.

Total
solids.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Juice from chips :
First

15.20
14.45
15.45

Per cent.
12. 01
11.92
12.84

Per cent.
.96
1.00
1.02

Second ......

Third

Average

15.03

12.26

.99

Diffusion juice:
First

10.88
10.40

8.88
8.65

.83
.74

Second

Average

10.64

8.76

.78

Exhausted chips :
First sample

.51

Second sample

.76

Third sample

.91

Average . . .

.73

Carbonatated juice . ....

11.09

9^20~

TTO

.12
3.39

Wastewater

Semi-sirup

51.80

4'J. 20
97 50

Molasses from first sugar

76.30

45.00
91.60

11.11

84

Caucused ................................................................................ tons.. 80.3

First sugar per ton-. .................................................................. pounds.. 146.1

Second sugar per ton .......................................................... ......... do ----

Total first and second sugars

186.2
15.0

Third sugar.

Pounds.

The total sugar in the cane at 90 per cent, juice was..'..... 220.6

Of this there was obtained 146.1 pounds at 97.50 144.4

And 40.1 pounds at 91. 6 36- 7

Total pure sucrose obtained • 181.1

Left in chips 14.6

Total left in molassea and lost in manufacturing 24. 9

(NOTE.— The third sugar will not be dried until in May or June, 1888. The esti-
mates of third sugar have been made by Mr. E. C. Barthelemy.)

EXTRACTION.

The percentage of sucrose left in the spent chips was .73. Sucrose
in cane was 11.03 per cent. The per cent, of extraction is therefore
11.03 — .73 == 10.30 -T- 11.03 x 100 = 93.4

SECOND TRIAL.

Another trial was made of the diffusion, machinery beginning Decem-
ber 9. Carbonatation was again used, but without lignite or any further
treatment. The juice passed directly from the filter presses to the
double effect pan.

The quantity of lime employed was .6 per cent, the weight of the
juice. The filtration was perfect. The experiment was remarkable in
showing that a perfect defecation can be made with carbonatation with a
much smaller percentage of liine than had been supposed necessary.

The masse cuite was dark, but the sugar a fair yellow.

Following are the data of the run :

Second diffusion run. December 9, 1887.

Total
solids.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Fresh chips :

14.06
15.65
15.70
15. 5D
14.00

Per cent.

11.70
13.64
13.52
13.02
11.18

Per cent.

1.04
.76
.75
.81
1.02

14.98

12.61

.88

Diffusion juice:

9.36
8.67
9.68
10.40
10.20

7.83
7.25
7.61
8.69
8.45

.67
.58
.55
.01

.78

Third sample - ...

9.66

7.96

7.73
7.35
8.55
9.00

8.16

.69

.65
.57

.50
.73

.61

-^r-^^53

Carbonatated juice :

9.12
8.74
10.20
11.40

9.86

Third sample ....

Fourth sample

Second diffusion run, December 9, 1887 — Continued.

Total

solids.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Exhausted chips:

Per cent.
1 58

Per cent.

1.69

48

.32

.40

.89

47.70

38 90

2.96

96.60

72 20

42 40

10 50

Second sU^ar . . * .... .

87.30

Pounds

Yield of first sugar per ton 128

Yield of second sugar per ton 43

Cane used, tons 90

The total sugar in the cane at 90 per cent, juice was . per ton.. 226. 98

Of these there was obtained 128 pounds at 96.G 123.6

And 43 pounds at 87.3 37. 5

Total pure sucrose obtained per ton.. 161. 1

Pure sucrose left in chips do 17.8

Pure sucrose left in molasses and lost in manufacture do 41.1

Third sugar estimated do 17. 0

Percentage sugar in cane extracted 92. 16

The poor yield was due to use of thick chips during the first part of
the run, causing a loss of 1.6 per cent, sucrose in the chips.
Following are the analytical data of the run :

THIRD TRIAL.

In this run the use of carbonatation and lignite was discontinued,
The diffusion juices were treated with sulphur fumes until well satu
rated. They were then treated with lime and clarified in the usual
way.

The clarification took place readily. The quantity of scums was very
small, and the sediment subsided rapidly, forming a thin layer on the
bottom of the tank, permitting the clear liquor to be easily and com-
pletely drawn off. The juice passed at once from the clarifiers to the
double effect pan and subsequently received no further purification.

Following are the analytical data obtained:

Third diffusion run December 10 and 11, 1888.

Total
solids.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Fresh chips :

14.39

Per cent.
11.89

Per cent.
.79

12.77

10.63

.77

14.49

12.06

.80

Average

13.88

11.53

.78

Diffusion juice:

9.42

7.82

.62

9.41

7.87

.59

9.55

7.86

.67

Average

9.46

7.85

.63

Sulphured juice:

9.G9

8.17

.66

9.12

7.53

.58

9.40

7.85

.62

Clarified juice:

9.95

8.21

.67

9.89

8.06

.63

Third sample

10. 32

8.39

.71

Average

10.05

8.22

.67

Exhausted chips :

=

.80

.50

.77

.93

75

Semi-sirup....

44.70

34.60

2.87

First sugar

96 30

Molasses from first sugar . . .. ....

72.90

36 70

12.07

First sugar, per ton v pounds.. 143

Number tons cane used 110

The molasses from the first sugar was boiled to string proof, and put
in wagons. A good crystallization of second sugar was secured but,
the molasses having been left too acid, a good separation was not se-
cured. Mr. Barthelemy therefore decided to reboil the molasses with
some of the product of the mill process, and therefore no statement of
the quantity of second sugar can be given. It was estimated at 30 pounds
per ton.

The cane from which this run was made was grown on new back land
and was the poorest of the whole season.

The percentage of sugar extracted of total sugar in cane was 92.80.

FOURTH TRIAL.

In this run the diffusion juice was treated with lime until almost neu-
tral. It was then boiled, skimmed, and allowed to settle. The scums
and sediments were of small volume and were all returned to the bat-
tery.

The juice received no other treatment whatever for clarification. It
was converted to sirup in a double effect vacuum pan. The capacity of
this pan was not quite great enough to evaporate the juice as fast as
furnished by the battery. For this reason the run which might have

87

been finished in two days occupied a part of a third day. The quantity
of cane worked was 200 tons.
Following is a record of the analytical data obtained :

Fourth diffusion run December 29, 30, and 31, 1837.

Total
solids.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Juices from fresh chips :
A M first day

16.46
17.27
17.26
17.13
16.97
16.19
16.26

16.70

Per cent.
14. M
15. .'53
15.12
14.84
14. 93
13. 90
14.05

14.60

Per cent.
.49
.43
.43
.45
.54
.61
.50

.49

P M first day

Midnight first day

A M thirdday

P M third day

Average fresh chip juice for run

Diffusion juices :

9.72
10.09
11. 38
11. GO
11.10
10. 92
10.94
10.45
10.87

8.71
9.01
10.16
9.31
9.87
9.69
9.77
9. 31
9.69

.32
.29
.30
.53
.tt
.33
.44
.38
.38

TJJe

Third sample first day

Second sample second day

First sample thhdday ' . ........

Second sample, third day

Average diffusion juice for run

10.78

9.50

Clarified juices:
Average for first day ....... .

10.75
11.77
12.01
11.61
11.25

9.34
10.36
10.36
9.78
. 9.51

.32
.32
.41
.38
.36

First sample thirdday ...... . .. ...

Third sample third day"

Average clarified juice for run

11.48

9.87
.52

.36

Juices from exhausted chips :

Second sample, first day ....

.61

.83
1.12

Second sample second day ....

72

.95
1 09

First sample third day

1 30

Third sample third day

1 10

Average exhausted chip juice for run...... .... .. .....

.91

37.37

33.10
81.20
98.40
51.80
35.10
80 60

.99

Masse-cuito first strike

First molasses from first strike .... .

76.22
40.00

7.76
1.19

Semi-sirup for second strike ..

98.90
55.60
93.8
165.5
66.2

Molasses from second strike

79.00

Average extraction

Pounds first su^ar per ton

Second sugar per ton pounds.. 45.9

Third sugar per ton (estimated) do ... *18.0

Cane used tons.. 200

FIFTH TRIAL.

The fifth and last run of the diffusion battery was begun on January
14 and finished on the 18th. This trial was made after the milling
work had been completed. The diffusion juices were treated precisely

*On February 29 I was informed by letter from Governor Wnrmoth that the third
sugars from the fourth run had been <li ic<l and weighed, yielding 3,723 pounds or 18.6
pounds per ton.

the same way as the mill juices had been, and after passing over bone-
black were concentrated to sirup in a Yaryan quadruple effect, which
had been in use with the mill juices during the manufacturing season.
The working of all the machinery during this final trial was admira-
ble, and the even march of the whole work promoted the efficiency of
the machinery and the successful manipulation of the juice.

Analytical data off/tli run.

No.

Brix.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

No.

Brix.

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Fresh chips :
397

16.87

Per cent.
14.23

Per cent.
.74

Diffusion juices — con-
tinued.

Per cent.

Per cent.

400

16 39

13 45

87

450

9.88

8.12

.4S

403

16 39

13 79

.89

453 '

10.87

9.00

.38

405

17 09

14 73

68

400

9.89

.45

408

16 86

12 11

75

466

10.67

8.41

.61

411

17 16

14 73

64

469

10.47

8.01

.72

414

16 93

14 06

70

473

10.17

8.02

.48

417

17 00

14 50

61

476

10.15

7.8Q

.48

490

16 70

13 93

.73

479

10.31

7.92

.47

423

16 79

14 11

.74

483

10.59

8.26

,5'J

426

17.19

14.17

.61

491

9.69

7.53

.61

429

4'?7

10.73
17 11

14.19
14 55

.59

61

Maximum

9.28

.72

440

16 17

13 48

.75

7.53

.34

443

16 17

13 43

76

Mean

8.41

.47

446

16 60

13 99

.63

419

16. 63

14.39

.65

Exhausted chips :

452

16 77

14 28

.63

399

.52

450

16 93

23 29

77

40"?

.21

465

16 03

33 79

76

407

52

468

16 07

13 35

85

410

.3'>

472

16 84

14 34

64

413

.52

475

16 37

13 54

82

416

. 41

478

16 51

14 17

70

419

.33

481

16 94

14 38

.65

422

.42

490

16 57

14 52

63

425

.49

4';8

55

Maximum

14.73

.89

431

.42

Minimum .

12 11

.59

439

.50

Mean

13.98

.70

442

.50

445

42

4

Diffusion juices •

398

11 37

9 28

60

451

.69

401

10.67

8 66

.64

454

.55

404

10 61

8 92

49

461

51

409

10.38

8.53

.41

467

.42

412

11 01

9 10

45

470

39

415

10.91

8.60

.48

474

.43

418

10 71

8 76

40

477

54

421

10.65

8 77

.40

480

34

424

10. 57

8.51

.44

486

.22

427

10.52

8 90

46

492

48

430

10 65

9 05

32

438

10.27

8 46

35

69

441

10.73

8.94

.45

21

444

10.88

8 99

42

Mean

44

447

49.5

7.68

.34

The molasses from the first sugars being very rich, the method of re-
boiling to grain was employed. To this end the molasses of the first
strike, having been reduced to 55 to 60 per cent, of total solids, was boiled
on a nucleus of first sugar left in the pan from the second strike. In
this way all the molasses was boiled to grain with most gratifying re-
sults except that from the last strike of the first sugars.

The attempt to boil this to grain did not succeed in giving a masse
cuite which could be dried with ease. The molasses running from the
machines was so thick that it clogged them up. Seven large sugar
wagons were filled with this material and set in the hot room.

89

The sugars made were equal in every respect to those obtained by mill-
ing in similar instances. Without counting the second sugar above
named, the grained sugar per ton amounted to 181.5 pounds. The
grained sugars in wagons will yield not less than 7,500 pounds or 1 8
pounds per ton.*

The third sugars are estimated by Mr. Barthelemy at not less than 16
pounds per ton.

The total yield per ton of the fifth run will reach therefore 215.5. The
number of tons of cane used was 417.

Summary of results.

Number of run.

Cane.

Mean
sucrose
in juice.

Mean
glucose
in juice.

Sugar
grained
in pan per
ton. First
sugar.

1...

Tons.
80 3

Per cent.
]2 2G

Per cent.
99

Pounds.

14.fi 1

2

90 0

12 61

88

128 0

3 . ...

110 0

11 53

78

4

20 o

14 60

49

165 5

5

417 0

13 98

70

181 5

" Estimated.

Wagon sugar per
ton.

Total
sugars
per ton.

Second
sugar.

Third
sugar (es-
timated).

Pounds.

Pounds.

Pounds.

40.1
43.0
*30.0
45.9
*18.0

15
18
12
18
16

201.2
189.0
185.0
229.4
t215.5

JUBUIIUH.VU.

t Actual weight, 16.3 pounds per ton, and 213.8 pounds total sugars per ton. The third sugars from
this run were mixed with molasses from the mill products, and uo separate return of it will be made.

COMPARATIVE YIELDS BY MILLING AND DIFFUSION.

The yield in first or grained sugars affords the best comparison of
the two S3rstems of manufacture. Judged by this standard the diffu-
sion process had given a yield of sugar fully 30 pounds per ton greater
than was afforded by milling. For further data on this point see the
report of Governor Warmoth farther on.

CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFUSION JUICE.

The juice of diffusion differs from the mill juice chiefly in its content
of water. In addition to this, also, must be noted a slight increase in
the ratio of glucose to sucrose. This is due doubtless to a slight inver-
sion of the sucrose during the process of diffusion. From a commercial

* The actual yield reported to me February 23, by Governor Warmoth, was 6,805
pounds, or 16.3 pounds per ton.

90

point of view the loss is insignificant. Farther, it may be said that
there appeared to be in the diffusion juice treated in the ordinary way
a slightly increased amount of gummy matter. This was noticed only
in filtering the sirup through bone-black. In the strike-pan and the
centrifugal the products of diffusion worked fully as well as those from
the mill.

DISPOSITION OF CHIPS.

An attempt was made to pass the chips through the five-roll mill, but
it was found impracticable. The first rolls would not take them easily,
and the second set of rolls had to be opened somewhat to secure the
proper feed. The bagasse issuing from the mill contained still 65 per
cent, water and made a poor fuel.

It would probably not be a difficult problem to so adjust the mill as
to secure a proper drying of the chips. To return the chips to the soil,
however, appears to be the most rational method of disposing of them.

It is true that if spread too thickly on the soil the chips may prove
highly injurious, but if distributed in a thin layer, covering almost if
not quite the original acreage of the cane furnishing them, they would
certainly prove advantageous. The chips would not only furnish or
ganic matter to the soil and thus increase its porosity, but they also
contain still a considerable part of nitrogenous matter, which would
afford a valuable plant food. Even the richest land should be treated
fairly, and the cane-field should receive as nearly as possible as much
as it gives. The additional cost of replacing the chips on the field is a
matter which should receive attention here, but the benefit will appar-
ently be greater than the expense. During the manufacturing season
the chips can be deposited in large beds, which subsequently can be
transferred to the field. If time for the partial decay of the chips
should be desired, the accumulation of one season need not be moved
until the following year.

DISPOSITION OF SCUMS AND SEDIMENTS.

The scums and sediments were successfully treated by the process of
carbonatation. The expense of a lime-kiln is not necessary for this
work. It was satisfactorily done by drawing the carbonic dioxide gas
directly from the stack of the boilers. As high as 11 per cent of CO2
was found in the gases from this source.

The scums, etc., treated with 2 to 3 per cent, of lime, are subjected to
the action of the gas until the lime is precipitated. They then can be
easily and rapidly filtered.

By means of a cheap and convenient monte jus the scums and sedi-
ments were also returned to the battery. The method of operating was
as follows :

The scums and sediments from the clarifiers were collected in a tank
furnished with a steam coil to keep them at the boiling temperature.

91

This tank was connected with a monte jus of 50 liters capacity. This
apparatus was connected with the compressed-air service used in oper-
ating the battery. It was so arranged that the master of diffusion, or
his assistant, could operate it directly from the central column of the
battery.

After each cell was filled with chips, 50 liters of the scums were run
into thsmontejus from the storage tank, and, by means of compressed
air, poured into the full cell. The process of diffusion was then con-
tinued in the usual way. The quantity of liquid drawn from each cell
was increased by the amount of scums added. For instance, if 900
liters were the amount regularly drawn, 950 would be taken from a cell
to which the scums had been added, as above indicated.

No deterioration of the diffusion juice could be detected in using this
method.

This procedure was also used during the progress of the work con-
ducted by the Department at Fort Scott during the season of 1887. I
have been told that a patent has been applied for to cover this process,
and have therefore placed on record the experiments made at Lawrence
for the public benefit.

THE USE OF LIGNITE.

In order to get lignite of the best possible variety and in the best
form for use, a few tons of the ground article were purchased from the
inventor of the process of filtering with brown coal, Mr. Fritz Kleeman,
of Schonigen, Germany.

I have already alluded to the successful use of lignite in conjunction
with lime and 'carbonic acid.

This experiment, however, did not show that any beneficial effects
were produced by the introduction of the lignite.

Afterwards experiments were made by Mr. Kleeman himself, using
lignite alone. Mr. Kleeman said the arrangement of the clarifying tanks
was not suitable to the process. The filter cloths were soon clogged and
the attempt at filtration had to be abandoned.

Later in the season I received a letter from Mr. W. J. Thompson, of
Calumet Plantation, in which he said that he would make a trial of the
process under more favorable conditions than obtained at Magnolia, and
requesting me to send him enough of the Kleeman lignite for that pur-
pose. This I gladly did. Mr. Thompson made a run of nineteen clari-
fiers with lignite, but found so many difficulties attending the work that
its further progress was abandoned.* On the other hand, Professor
Stubbs, at Kenner, working with a small press, secured results that
were highly satisfactory.

The results of the work with lignite show —

(1) That on a large scale the filtration takes place with great diffi-
culty, unless a very great quantity of the lignite be used and the juice
be neutral or slightly alkaline.

Appendix H, p. — .

92

(2) That with a slight excess of lime, precipitated with carbonic acid,
lignite caii be successfully used to increase the filtering surface.

(3) The decolorizing power of lignite varies with the nature of the
sample. In some cases this property is present in a high degree; in
others, entirely absent.

(4) The successful working of the process on a small scale would
indicate that it might be worked commercially.

(5) In juices as pure as those of sugar-canes, filtration through lig-
nite, even if easily done, does not seem to be necessary.

I had expected to have Mr. Thompson's complete report on the
experiments with lignite before this time, but it has not yet been re-
ceived.

COMPARATIVE YIELD FROM MILL AND DIFFUSION BATTERY.

The comparative yield from the cane-mill and the diffusion battery
is given by Governor Warmoth in a paper read before the Planter's
Association at the February meeting, viz :

The first cane worked was from second-year stubble, and it gave us 146 pounds of
first sugar to the ton and 40 pounds of seconds.

The molasses was put into the cisterns with the other, and we can not give any
estimate of the thirds. Our mill gave ua 145 pounds first and second sugars from this
cane.

The next test was from some green cane, grown on new land, yielding 28 tons of
cane per acre— considerably blown down and sprouted in a small degree. This had
much less sugar in it than the first cane. Yet we got 128 pounds of first sugar and 43
pounds second sugar per ton from it.

Our mill gave us 140 pounds of first and second sugar per ton from this cane.

The next run gave us 165.5 pounds firsts, 45.9 of seconds ; total, 211.4 pounds, with
thirds in the wagons, which we estimate will give us 15 pounds more, a total of 226.4
pounds.

The next run was on 450 tons of cane, beginning on the 13th of January, ending on
the 18th, This cane was rich and fine. It had been killed on the 26th of December,
was not windrowed, but was in fine condition. From this cane diffusion gave us 181
pounds of first sugar and grained seconds, with enough left in the wagons to bring it
up to 223 pounda. From this cane we got 193 pounds of first and second sugar by our
mill.*

All of this shows about the same difference between diffusion and our mill- work of
about 35 pounds of sugar per ton of cane. I do not mean to be invidious when I say
that I think we got a little better extraction by our mill than any of our neighbors.
My friend, Mr. Dan Thompson, got more sugar to the ton of cane in 1886 than we did,
but this result was obtained not so much by his extraction as by the skillful work in
the balance of his house, in which I firmly believe the equal does not exist in Lou-
isiana.

It is safe to say that the average yield per ton of cane in the State is not over 110
pounda. I believe diffusion will bring the average up to within the neighborhood of
200 pounds — a gain of certainly 75 pounds, and perhaps 90 pounds, per ton of cane.

* Mr. Thompson's report was received March 5. See Appendix B.

NOTE. — In respect of the last run, the analytical data show that the cane worked by
the mill during its last run, from which 193 pounds per ton were made, was richer in
sucrose by nearly 1 per cent, than that worked at the last diffusion run.

93

My nearest neighbor, Mr.-Bradish Johnson, obtained the past season 136 pounds of
sugar per ton of cane. We are within 3 miles of each other ; our land is much the
same ; our cultivation is substantially the same. It is fair to assume his cane was as
rich as mine, yet we had about 175 pounds of all sugar per ton, a difference of 39
pounds of sugar per ton on our mill-work, and about 71 pounds difference on the dif-
fusion work. Take his estate for illustration:

His 10,000 tons of cane gave him 1,390,000 pounds of sugar. Had he worked his
crop by diffusion he would certainly have had 70 pounds more sugar to the ton of
cane. This would have increased his yield 700,000 pounds of sugar, which, at 5^
cents per pound, would have given him $38,500 more for his crop than he received.

Take my own crop of 13,300 tons of cane. Had I worked it by diffusion I would have
had 35 pounds more sugar per ton. This would have given me 465,000 pounds more
sugar than I obtained, an aggregate of 2,865,000 pounds of sugar from about 600 acres,
or 4,750 pounds per acre. The cash increase of my crop would have been, at 5-J cents
per pound, $25,592.50, a difference to Mr. Johnson of $3.85 per ton of cane, and to me,
on my crop, of $1.82| per ton of cane.

QUANTITY OF JUICE DRAWN FROM EACH CELL.

The caucused for diffusion was weighed and delivered, chiefly on cars,
to the cutter. The trash which becomes detached in handling the cane
was collected in carts and weighed, and its weight deducted from the
total. No account was taken of the trash which entered the cutter.

It was found that the average weight of chips in each cell, when filled
in the ordinary manner, was 1,757 pounds. One cell filled with extra
care was weighed, and the weight found to be 1,860 pounds. It was
thus seen that by careful packing it was easy to get 100 pounds extra
weight of chips into each cell.

The quantity of juice drawn from each cell varied from 900 to 1,000
liters, or from 2,059 to 2,288 pounds.

The mean quantity of juice drawn for the first four runs was nearly
2,170 pounds. Assuming that in each 100 pounds of chips there is 90
per cent, of juice, we have in 1,757 pounds of chips 1,581.3 pounds of
normal juice.

The quantity of diffusion juice from this was 2,170 pounds. The in-
crease over normal juice is therefore 589 pounds, or 37.2 per cent. In
the last run a much greater dilution was secured. In order to get a
slow current of the juice through the calorisators the master of diffusion
was instructed to begin filling the cell with juice when it was about half
full of chips. At the end of the run it was found that the introduction
of liquid had caused a floating of the chips, and that the weight of chips
in each cell has been greatly diminished. Thus a higher dilution of the
diffusion juice was secured than was intended. The very perfect ex-
haustion of the chips during the last run was partially secured by this
means.

The mean weight of chips in each cell during the last run was 1,500
pounds; the, weight of normal juice 1,350 pounds, giving an iiicicasc of
QO per cent. This dilation is Creator than is nrrossarv for diffusion

94

work. With a battery of sixteen cells I think the dilution could be
easily reduced to 30 per cent, and the extraction be satisfactory.

COAL CONSUMED.

The quantity of coal consumed depends first, on the efficiency of the
boilers and evaporators employed, second on the quality of the coal, and
third on the dilution of the juice.

In beet-sugar factories the basis of computation is generally based on
the dilution arising from drawing 180 pounds of diffusion juice from each
100 pounds of beet cuttin gs. In respect of evaporation what is found to
be true of beet juices will also apply to cane juices of the same density.

From the arrangement of the machinery at Magnolia it was found
impossible to measure the quantity of coal consumed by the diffusion
work. In the last run, when the milling work was over, the centrifu-
gals were run drying seconds and the vacuum pan boiling thirds during
the process of the work.

In addition to this, a part of the steam used was furnished by the
bagasse boilers, using wood and coal as a fuel — not an economical method
of making steam.

As nearly as could be estimated, the quantity of coal required to make
a pound of sugar was 2 pounds. The actual quantity of coal which
would be required with the best boilers and evaporators may be found
by consulting Dr. Karl Stammer's latest edition of u Text-book of Sugar
Making," pages 873 ct seq.

When 180 pounds juice are taken for each 100 pounds beets the con-
sumption of coal to reduce the juice to a sirup of 60 per cent, total
solids is as follows :

Pounds.

With double-effect pan 13. 5

With triple-effect pan 9.10

With quadruple-effect pan 6. 76

To reduce the sirup to masse cuite requires 4.44 pounds.
We find, therefore, the following quantities of coal necessary for each
100 pounds raw material giving 180 pounds of juice :

Pounds.

For a double effect 17.94

For a triple effect 13. 54

For a quadruple effect 11.20

If now we take the ordinary dilution for sugar-cane, the following
numbers are found :

In evaporating 180 pounds of diffusion juice from 100 pounds cuttings
to 60 per cent, sirup 156 pounds of water, are evaporated. In evaporat-
ing 125 pounds of diffusion juice to same density, only 101 pounds of
water are driven off. To evaporate 156 pounds of water 13.26, 9.10, and
6.76 pounds of coal are used for double, triple, and quadruple effects,
respectively. For the same weight of cane chips, giving 125 pounds of

95

diffusion juice, the quantities of coal consumed would be 8.58, 5.89, and
4.44 pounds, respectively. To reduce this to masse cuite would require
the same consumption as before, viz, 4.44 pounds. One hundred pounds
of cane chips will yield by diffusion an average of 10 pounds of sugar
for the whole State of Louisiana. The coal consumed in evaporation,
therefore, would be :

Pounds.

For a double effect 13. U2

For a triple effect 10.33

Fora quadrup.e effect 8.88

The above computation includes the exhaust steam from the pumps,
centrifugal engine., etc. The quantity of steam required to run the bat-
tery must be added to the above. It certainly would not amount to
more than two pounds per hundred of cane used.

With the best apparatus most economically arranged the total con-
sumption of coal per 100 pounds of cane would be :

Pounds.

For a double effect 15. 02

For a triple effect , 12. 33

For a quadruple effect 10. 88

Reduced to 1,000 pounds of sugar from cane yielding an average of
10 per cent, of all sugars, the figures become:

For 1,000 pounds sugar — Pounds.

With double effect 1, 502

With triple effect 1,233

With quadruple effect 1,0«8

In ail these calculations the coal is assumed to be of fair average
quality, and to be a'>le to convert 6 pounds of water into steam at usual
boiler pressure for each 1 pound of coal. In general, then, it may be
said the quantity of coal required to make 1,000 pounds of sugar by
diffusion varies from 1,000 to 1,500 pounds, according to the system of
evaporation employed.

Diffusion can only be made an economical success when the best ma-
chinery and the most economical methods are employed. The great
objection which has been urged against it, viz, the increased consump-
tion of fuel required, is entirely removed when the process is carried
on under the economical conditions which have been mentioned.

To attempt to introduce diffusion with old and worn-out apparatus,
defective boilers and open pans, would simply be disastrous. It can
only succeed when the highest mechanical skill, associated with the
best scientific control, directs all the operations of the sugar house.

In the one experiment where actual weighings have been completed
of the whole product, viz, the fourth run, the quantity of sugar made
per ton is :

Pounds.

First : 165.5

Seconds 45. 9

Thirds 18.6

Total.. . mo

96

I do not think, therefore, that it is extravagant to believe that with
the best culture and most economical method of manufacture the yield
per ton of cane in Louisiana may be brought up to 200 pounds. The
introduction of diffusion means almost a complete rehabilitation of the
average sugar house. It would be unreasonable to expect that plant-
ers will have the money and the desire to undertake such a radical
change, or at least to make it rapidly.

But it seems to me that the gradual introduction of diffusion, with
its concomitant machinery, will work a great change in the sugar in-
dustry of the South, bringing success and prosperity where, for years,
a hard struggle for existence has been going on.

The final result, I sincerely hope, will bring into cultivation the ex-
tensive areas of rich sugar lands nofir lying idle and increase the pro-
duction of the State of Louisiana to 500,000 tons annually.

I can not close this report without expressing my hearty appreciation
of the support I have received from the sugar planters. The great
majority of them were skeptical in respect of the process, but all were
anxious that a thorough trial should be made.

Particularly I desire to thank Governor Warmoth for his constant
and enthusiastic support and for generously giving $5,000 and more to
continue experiments, when the funds appropriated for the"rn had been
exhausted by the expensive delays caused by the cyclone and imperfec- ,
tious in the machinery. Without this timely aid the whole work would
have been stopped on the very threshold of success.

The advice and encouragement of Messrs. Dymond and McCall, mem-
bers of the advisory committee, helped me greatly during the most try-
ing days of the work, when it seemed an almost hopeless task to wrestle
further with difficulties of a purely mechanical nature.

The active co-operation of Mr. J. B. Wilkinson, jr., was a source of
constant assistance during the whole progress of the work, which is
but inadequately recognized by a simple sentence of thanks.

Of my own assistants, Messrs. Barthelemy and Spencer had charge of
the erection of the building and of the apparatus, except that put up by
the Col well Company.

Mr. Barthelemy took charge of the sugar making during the various
trials and Mr. Spencer had the general supervision of the diffusion
process and particularly of the limekiln and carbonatation apparatus.
Messrs. Crampton and Fake took charge of the chemical work. Mr.
John Dugan was master of diffusion. Mr. E. Sieg, as consulting engi-
neer, rendered much assistance. His long experience and thorough
knowledge of the literature of diffusion rendered his services particu-
larly valuable.

Finally) I will say that no one recognizes more fully than myself the
many imperfections noticed during the progress of the experiments in
the machinery and methods employed. I have endeavored not to con-
ceal these, believing that in pointing them out a service is rendered the
public onlv less valuable than that secured by complete success,

APPENDIX A.

Letter of the Commissioner in transmitting report of M. Swenson to the

Senate.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY,
Washington, D. C., February 2, 1888.

SIR : In response to a resolution of the Senate of the 30th ultimo, I
have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of the report made to this
Department by Professor Swenson on the subject of sorghum sugar.

For the further information of the Senate I beg to say that experi-
ments in the manufacture of sugar have been conducted by this De-
partment during the past season at three stations, namely, Rio Grande,
N. J. ; Fort Scott, Kans. ; and Magnolia Plantation. La. The two first-
named stations worked with the sorghum cane and the last-named sta-
tion with sugar-cane. I ^was led to change my original intention to
publish the reports of these stations separately by the belief that the com-
bination of the three reports in one volume would make a more useful,
practicable, and valuable document for purposes of comparison and
otherwise — a document which would be especially valuable in the South
to sugar-planters, who might thereby be* led to greatly prolong their
sugar- working season by planting both the sorghum and the sugar cane.
The material portions of the reports of the two first-named stations
were thereupon made public through the press and their official publi-
cation delayed, awaiting the termination^ last week, of the experiments
at Magnolia. The manuscript for this report is now ready for the
printer, and it will be published as an official report of this Department
within a few days.

Very respectfully,

NORMAN J. COLMAN,
Commissioner of Agriculture.
Hon. JOHN J. ING-ALLS,

President pro tempore. United States Senate.

97
15449— No. 17 7

APPENDIX B.

BROWN COAL AND WOOD CHAR IN THE FILTRATION OF CANE
JUICES AND SIRUPS.

CALUMET SUGAR-HOUSE, BAYOU TECHE, LA.,

Wednesday, February 29, 1888.

DEAR SIR : Pursuant to the conditions attaching 9 tons of German
lignite furnished him by the U. S. Department of Agriculture for ex-
perimentation in cane- juice nitration at this factory, I am instructed
by Mr. Daniel Thompson, its proprietor, under whose exclusive patron-
age the experiments have otherwise been conducted, to make you the
folio wing report concerning the same :

A miniature apparatus comprising mill, steam -defecators, open steam-
evaporators, subsiders, and a laboratory, frame filter-press from Wege-
lin and Hiibner, center- feed, executed in bronze, of one-half square foot
filtering area, arranged for complete displacement, offered reasonable
facilities at all times to small work. Four Kroog presses of thirty
frames, 220 square feet filtering surface each, so mounted with respect
to receiving vessels, juice, and lixiviating pumps, safety- valves, and like
appurtenances as to have operated upon scums throughout the season
without suggesting alteration, besides eliciting the eulogiums of the
inventor of the so-called Brown coal process, served during industrial
trials. All pipes were of copper or brass, pumps of bronze, and the
plates, perforated sheets, frames and other iron parts of the apparatus
in contact with juice all thoroughly painted, as insurance against dis-
coloration of products. A well arranged chemical laboratory, unusually
well equipped for investigations connected with sugar, was also pro-
vided.

Mr. B. Kemmers, an English expert in mechanical filtration and sugar
refining, well known to readers of the Sugar Cane Magazine, assumed
technical control of the experiments, assisted by Mr. 11. A. Williams,
chemist from the Louisiana Sugar Experiment Station, Mr. J. P. Bald-
win, a local adept in defecation, and two long-time employe's of the
factory.

A preliminary study was made of cake formation. For this pur-
pose Spanish whiting, variously colored, as with aniline dyes and
alizarine, kept mechanically suspended in water by vigorous agitation,
was pumped into the chambers, the cakes being finished off at high
pressures to insure extreme solidity, which, after removal, were cut
into sections, longitudinal and transverse. It was found that, with con-
stant or very gradually increased pressures maintained within the cham-
bers, and a liquid kept under unaltered conditions, the cakes formed by
extremely uniform accretions, beginning with a thin and even coating
of the entire filtering area, over which the various colors used deposited

99

100

one upon the other, as fed in succession to the press, in likewise thin
and equable layers, until the chambers were quite filled and filtration
ceased. With oscillatory pressures and with substances of widely differ-
ing specific gravities, such as whiting, brown coal, red lead, wood char,
and ultramarine, one following upon the other, the various lamina
proved most irregular in their deposition upon the filter-bed, being com-
paratively of excessive thickness in parts while running out altogether
in others, the plane of contact being besides often obliterated or scarcely
defined, because of partial intermingling between the different sub-
stances employed. The same effects, also, found their cause in the use
of any given substance fed alternately in fine and coarse division, or at
first in high followed by low percents of the matrix.

There can be little doubt that for the best results in general filter-
press work, this indicates, as afterwards substantiated for sugar liquors
by the use of hydrostatic columns on the one hand and intermittency
secured through means of a by-pass valve on the other, the first im
portance of constant pressures, freed especially from the vibratory pul-
sations of ordinary pumps, and a liquid so agitated while awaiting the
process as to carry to the press, at all stages of this, a reasonably uni-
form percentage of whatever matrix is employed, the laws of hydraulics,
as illustrated in silt-bearing streams, here again exhibiting themselves in
complete application.

Satisfied that the mechanical arrangement of the large apparatus was
appropriate to the intervention of a matrix and that the small answered
to all the essential conditions of the large, systematic work with brown
coal, under what is known as the Kleemann process, began on Novem-
ber 29. Five long tons of this article had been imported by Mr. Dan'l
Thompson, through the Sangerhausen Maschinenfabrick, Germany,
which, however, was so superlatively unfit for its destined duty, by
reason of uneven and inadequate pulverization, as to have required pre-
vious and, of course, laborious hand -sifting.

It was first sought to learn what relation varying quantities of this
article bore to speed in the filtration of defecated but unskimmed juices.
With this intent different percentages, based upon the estimated weight
of the contained sucrose, as the most convenient, although not, assuredly,
the most rational standard of reference, were employed with the-results
which follow:

Lignite,
per cent,
on con-
tained su-
crose.

Juice filtered per oper-
ation; 30 -frame,
Kroog press. (Ap-
proximate gallons).

Average time of one
operation. (Approx-
imate hours.)

Average
juice per
press, per 24
hours. (Ap-
proximate
gallons.)

Average
juice per
square foot ;
filtering
area per 24
hours. (Ap-
proximate
gallons.)

Maxima.

Minima.

Filtering,

Lixiviating
and
emptying.

7.5
15
22.5
30
45
60

2,800
2,000
1.500
1,200
950
700

2,900
2,100
1,600
1,300
1,050
800

8
6
4.5
3
1.5
0.75

3
3
2.5
2
1.5
1

6,220
5,466
5,296
6,000
8,000
10, 275

28.3
24.6
24.1
27.2
36.3
46.7

The average juice per press and per square foot of filtering surface,
per twenty-four hours, stand calculated on the basis of a 60-day con-
tinuous run. Here, taking the average weight of the juice at 8.85
pounds per gallon, and its sucrose at 13J per cent. — for percents of lig-

101

nite upon sucrose contained may be substituted percents of the same
on the weight of jnice or pounds of the former per 100 gallons of the
latter, as exhibited in the annexed scheme :

Lignite PIT cent, on weight of
sucrose in juice

7.5

15

22 5

30

41!

fin

Lignite pur cent, on weight of
juice

1

2

:

^

Lignito in p mmls per 100 gallons
of juice

8 85

17 70

''6 ">

35 40

ri'{ i o

7(\ fin

The juices treated during the interval of this work remained, so far
as could be ascertained, essentially uniform as respected adaptability
to filtration, as, indeed, they have done up to present writing ; being
referred in this regard, occasionally, to an arbitrarily selected stand-
ard by careful weighings of defecated juice, brown coal, and prod-
ucts operated upon in observed times on tared paper filters. The
analyses of raw juices for those dates which cover this series of deter-
minations, as made in the course of diurnal routine work, are presented
below.

While they may serve for general comparison with the like as ob-
served in other portions of our tropical cane belt, no relation has yet
been noted to exist between the amounts of sucrose, reducing sugars or
other known constituents of the juice, and the difficulties exhibited by
this in filtration. In the latter regard it is not possible to say if that
which has here been experimented upon fairly represents Louisiana's
average. It would seem, indeed, to be otherwise, since, in the treat-
ment of scums, great difficulty is reported to have been experienced in
almost, if not every, other local factory possessing filter-presses, while
at this no other process of manufacture was throughout so satisfac-
torily performed.

9 ;i

m.

3p

m.

9 p. i

i.

Date.

1

Sucrose.

Glucose.

Exponent.

|

1

Sucrose.

Glucose.

4l

H

H

a

§

§

u
1

Glucose.

Expoin ut.

1887.
Nov. 30

15. 96

13. 5

.45

84.58

Dec. 1
2
3
5
6
7

15.03
15.30
15. '27
14.0!)
14.18
It. 03

12.0
12.1
J2.3
10.4
10. 1
10.8

.31
.27

.52
.62
. 50
.45

79.84
79.08
80. 55
73.81
71.22
76.81

15.23
14.78

14.07
14. 69
1 1. 03
14.58

11.6
11.0
11.2
10.7
11.0
10.7

.25
.03
.47
.50
.43
.00

76.16
74.42
79.60
72.83
78.40
73.38

15.43
14.43
13.78
14.91
14.23

12.0
11.7
9.7
11.5
11.2

1.14.
1.33
1.50

1.36
1.36

77.77
81.08
70. 39
77.12
78.70

8

1 L 4:5

11.5

.66

7!). (i!)

14. 77

11.5

.51

77.86

0

] M>3

11.7

.56

7i). 97

14.69

11.3

1.38

76.92

10
12
14
IS

i :{.(>(>
15. 09
11.17

ir. (i;

11.3
11.7
]•_'. 1
11.0

.48
.64
.61

17

80.91
77.53
85.39

7!> 17

-14.69

i :..<;;
u in

15 II1.)

11.5
12.1
12.1
11 8

1.47

i-'eo'

78.28
77.41
8LOt
78 19

14.96
14.00
14.20

11.4
11.6
11.3

'."'.'.

76.20
82.85
79.57

16

1 1. c> ;

12. 5

1 <i'i

X.'i 41

14.60

1 ' !l

1 4'}

87. Kl

17

1 I !I7

12 0

1 61

80 Ifi

1 1 r,'i

13 4

1 45

91 21

19

15. 16

12.3

1.35

si. i:»

15. 43

12.6

!..:»

81.65

15. 'J9

13.6

1.22

88 94

Average solids. 14.72

A vi rage sucrose. 11. 68

Average reducing .sugars (izlucosc) 1.44

Average coHliru nt of purity (exponent) 79.34

Plant cane, 127. 5 tons (circa) per acre, blown prostrate September 16.

102

From these trials the resulting extremes, in round numbers, have
alone been given. Variations in temperatures and in pressures, both
with juice and displacement water ; in density and completeness of
defecation with the former ; in perfection of cake and lixiviation
sought, as in other similar variables, some premeditated, others at
times uncontrollable, render, as will be understood by a trained experi-
mentalist like yourself, absolutely definite and thoroughly iron -clad
figures quite out of the question. The average amounts of juice put
through given filtering areas in fixed times have, however, in fact, most
nearly corresponded with those presented as minima.

In general, it may be safely said, the most satisfactory filtrations
were uniformly of juices slightly acid only, 180° F. (circa), under pres-
sures which, initially low, were most gradually increased until, at finish -
ing-off, 60 pounds per square inch had been attained. Neither reason-
able increase of pressure nor higher temperatures than these availed
perceptibly. Boiling after the addition of the lignite produced no
good result later in filtration, when intimate admixture of matrix and
liquid had been maintained. Of displacement, or the depletion in
sugar of the cake, more will be said hereafter.

Utterly at variance as the coal percentages and time volumes indi-
cated are with promises which had preceded the process to this country,
they proved as persistent as they are disappointing. From 30 to 45
per cent, on the estimated crystallizable product present were shown
over and over again to be the smallest of coal consistent witli reason-
able amounts of work done in given times, with given filtering areas,
whether by the experimental or the working apparatus. Upon this
last from one to three consecutive defecators, of exceeding 1,300 gal-
lons each, were repeatedly essayed. Separate treatment of skimmed
liquors and their scums did no better in the aggregate. Those sub-
stances which peculiarly interfere with filtration appear to be removed
only in minimum degree with the skimmings and sediments. Were
this otherwise, separation and recovery of juice from the latter by
filter-pressing, as now practiced, would scarcely be feasible. It was
the same whether with a lime, a sulphurous acid and lime, a lime and
phosphoric acid, an acid sulphite of alumina, or an acid albumen
defecation, under the Willcox patent; and with these reagents in all
proportions. Tannic acid extracted coloring matter from the brown
coal, as did phosphoric and some other chemicals, without facilitat-
ing filtration. The use of lignite in alkaline solution is forbidden by
its solubility in such. Basic lead acetate showed no better effects with
the small press than the rest. Carbonatation alone succeeds, and this,
as you told me, requires no lignite. Repetition, later repeated, with
foreign lignite prepared under Mr. Kleemann's individual supervision
and furnished by your department, as also with native coals obtained
from the Louisiana Sugar Experiment Station and other sources, com-
minuted at home, aggravated the disappointment. All degrees of pul-
verization were tried. The amounts filtered seemed tolerably constant
for stubble and plant-cane juices and for juices from freshly cut canes,
and from those many weeks windrowed. From old land cane they did
doubtfully better than from new; those deteriorated as a frost effect not
altogether so well, perhaps, as those not so injured. With cane freed
from its adhering cerosin, by sand-papering prior to crushing, it went
no better. Butts showed no decided superiority to middles and tops.

In all cases the filtered juices, whether from skimmed liquors or scums
or the two treated without previous separation, whether from high or
low percentages of brown coal and with whatever defecating agent em-

103

ployed, were exceedingly bright and clear from the first until running
had quite ceased altogether. Another disappointment, however, awaited
inquiry into the actual improvement as to purity secured. The expo-
nent, on the average, was raised not materially to exceed one per cent,
of total solids attributable to the coal, exclusive even of sweet- waters.
A few analyses, taken at random from the laboratory records, sufficiently
illustrate this. In every case the non-filtered and filtered samples rep-
resent, as nearly as practicable, the same juice, tfor the large presses
these were taken in equal volumes at the discharge openings of defe-
cators and presses, respectively, at intervals of three minutes, always so
as to represent by pairs identical defecators of juice and identical defe-
cations, before and after filtration, which, following adequate admixture
of each series, as obtained from individual defecators, were re-sampled.
This was permitted by the admirable arrangement of the coal-mixing
receivers,which contained, each, precisely the amount from one defecator,
and which were filled and emptied alternately in rotation. The effect
of a thorough cake washing, the sweet- water being mixed back propor-
tionately with the filtered juice, of which it was the after-product, is
shown in the last two analyses.

Defecated, not filtered.

Filtered, 30 to 45 per cent,
brown coal.

a»

H

.
Date.

I

.2

p

Remarks.

.

•

G|

•

•

a

1

3

o

a

1

a

1

1

a

«

I

1

3

&

3

H

3

£

3

M

O

M

1W7.

Dec. 28

16.44

13.0

1.84

79.08

14.15

16.43

13.3

1.80

80. 95

14. 15

1.87

Frosted cane.

28

16.44

13.0

1.84

79.08

14.15

16.03

12.9

1. 78j 80. 47

13.79

1.39

Cake from the above used.

29

16.44

13.6

1.46

82.72

10.70

16.44

13.8

1.381 83.94

10.00

1.22

30

17.05

13.9

1.25

81.52

8.99

16.48

13.6

1.19 82.52

8.75

1.00

Willcox albumen defecation.

31

15. 00

11.7

1.44

78.00

12.30

14.70

11.6

1.40

78.91

12.07

0.91

1888.

Jan. 2

15.00

12. 61. 20

84. 00 9. 52

15.30

13.0

1.30 84.97

10.00

0.97

3

15.17

12. 3 1. 07

81.08 8.69

15.20

12.6

1.10 82.89

8.00

1.81

4

15.11

12. 3 1. 19

81. 40 9. 67

14. 56 12. 0

1.13 82.41

9.41

1.01

10

16.46

13. 5 1. 00

82.01

7.41

15.96

13.3

1.01

83.33

7.52

1.32

Large presses, Willcoxdefe-

cation.

17

16.44

13.51.10

82.11

8.17

15.12

12.6

1.02

83.33

8.09

1.22

Large presses, lime defeca-

tion.

17

16.63

13. 6 0. 96

81.77

7.06

15.67

12.9

0.83

82.32

6.43

0.55

Large presses.

17

16.47

13.5

1.00

81.96

7.40

15.57

12.8

0.89

82.21

6.95

0.25

Large presses, pro rata of
sweet HaO included.

17

16.36

13.6

1.06

83.12

7.79

15.29

12.9

0.94

84.37

7.28

1.25

Large presses.

17

16.36

13.0

0.91

79.46

7.00

15.34

12.2

0.83

79.53

6.80

0.07

Large presses, pro rata of

sweet IhO included.

17

15.90

13.4

0.98

84.27

7.35

14.78

12.5

0.90

84.57

7.20

0.30

Do.

Means.

16.08

13.1

1.22

81.46

9.31

15.52

12.8

1.16

82.47

9.06

1.01

.

After that, due to the use of 10 or 15 per cent of lignite on the weight
of sugar present, no commensurate eft'ect was observed to be produced
in the direction of increased purity by the addition of further quanti-
ties. This loll off very slightly or not at all, however, as filtration pro-
ceeded towards its finishing point, as also more or less in lixiviation,
depending, as seemed shown, upon a lower or higher percentage of coal
employed. Believing the application of the process to Louisiana juice,
condemned by the excessive quantities of lignite found essential to suf-
ficiently rapid filtration and by its failure to realize a higher gain in
purity, before reaching conclusive knowledge of these minutiae it

104

should be said these have Dot since been accorded that systematic in-
quiry which, otherwise, they would have deserved.

As decolorizers of saccharine liquors, either dilute or concentrated,
certain brown coals are, on the other hand, surprisingly effective. In
the table annexed are given to the nearest per cent, the color repeatedly
removed from defecated juices, by varying percentages of the article
furnished by your Department, referred in each series to standard sam-
ples prepared from the defecated juice dealt with by mere passage
through filter paper. This paper filtration is a necessity, since suspended
matter, lighter in color than the mother- liquor, partially by preventing
the transmission of light through this last and partly by itself reflecting
light, gives invariably, in simply subsided juices, a tint too light by a
number of degrees. The percentages of color removed were uniformly
measured by the relative length of columns made to give the same tint
as the untreated standard when contained in tubes of like glass, of
caliber such as to avoid a decided meniscus, and with light of equal in-
tensities transmitted from below in lines parallel to the columns' longi-
tudinal axes.

Lignite, per
cent, on
weight of
sucrose.

Length of

columns
mm.

Per cent,
color
removed.

TJnfiltered

10

5

28

64

10

36

72

15

50

80

20

64

84

25

80

88

30

92

89

40

100

90

50

112

91

In the foregoing the juices were treated nearly to neutrality with
lime alone. With sulphurous and phosphoric acids, acid albumen, acid
sulphite of alumina, or even a decidedly acid lime defecation, the per-
cents. removed were, of course, reduced, there being a less intense pri-
mary tint. No other lignite gave such high effects as that furnished
by your Department. This will be seen from the accompanying approx-
imations, obtained with from 22.5 per cent, to 25.0 per cent, of lignite
on the weight of sucrose filtered, expressed iu maxima and minima to
the nearest 10, sulphur fumes having been used on the juices — tL? sir-,
ups not having been treated with coal prior to concentration.

Lignite, where obtained.

Per cent, color removed.

Juice.

Sirup.

Maxima.

Minima.

Maxima.

Minima.

Sangerhausen Machine Works, Ger-
many

60

80

70
60
GO

40

60

50
40
40

45

50

45
40

40

35

40

35
30
30

Unitea States Department of Agricult-
ure, prepared by F. Kleemanu, Ger-
many

Louisiana Sugar Experiment Station,
minfd1 in Alabama

J. B. Friedheim, Camden, Ark
B. F. Bead & Co., Mineola Tex

105

The higher effect of your article is perhaps attributable, in consider-
able measure, to a more perfect pulverization than that secured in other
samples, the degree of this exercising an undoubted influence. As was
noticed in the matter of purity coefficient, after the use of some 15 per
rent lurther amounts added were out of all proportion to the increase
in effect. The power of lignite to absorb or otherwise destroy or re-
move is apparently confined to those contained substances producing
particular color effects only. For these its affinity is certainly very
great, animal char or bone black, in the lower percentages, being found
altogether out of comparison with it in this jegard. These colors sup-
pressed, however, by a relatively small quantity of the lignite, addi-
tional quantities produce but little useful effect, the remaining coloring
matters being those for which it possesses little or no affinity. This
hypothesis explains the fact that, having used so much as 30 to 45 per
cent, to secure rapidity of filtration, the cake from one operation was
found to have lost none of its decolorizing power upon a second appli-
cation, though it no longer filtered with the same efficiency. Its influ-
ence upon the exponent, also, seemed to have diminished little by like
previous use upon juice, although considerably more so after the filtra-
tion of dense sirups not first treated as juice, a fact possibly finding its
explanation on the same lines. Except for the Texas sample, all the
coals examined gave up a slight amount of greenish coloring matter,
whether boiled in distilled water, juice, or sirup, all showing likewise
an acid reaction, your own being most pronounced in the latter par-
ticular.

A hard and apparently very dry cake was obtained with whatever
variety of lignite, if employed in amounts above 15 per cent, of the
contained sugar, provided only ample time was accorded its formation.
It was, however, in all instances of high per cents, exceedingly porous
as compared with scum cake finished off at corresponding pressures,
weighing per press always in close proximity to the ascertained average
of 070 pounds at a final pressure of GO pounds, of which, after lixivia-
tiou at 40 pounds pressure, 49 per cent., a little more or less, was moist-
ure. .

Since with a juice polarizing 13 per cent, sucrose some 40 pounds of
the latter would be otherwise lost from each pressing, equal to nearly
3 per cent, of the entire amount treated, supposing 1,300 gallons of
juice jto be put through, with- 30 per cent, of the brown coal, at each op-
,<>n, the importance of lixiviation can scarcely be overstated. No
press except arranged for this supplementary process in its most com-
plete attainment would, of course, be admissible. This work is too
unuuiformly accomplished by steam, by reason of channels at once cut
on lines of least resistance, which, besides, leaves the press too hot for
immediate manipulation and severely taxes the cloths. Hot water re-
sults in too rapid and too great a reduction of the purity coefficient,
possibly because of the action of heat upon the solubility of some
among the retained impurities. Cold water certainly performed best,
all things considered.

The theoretical amount of so-called displacement water was found
altogether inadequate. For a 30-frame Kroog press 200 liters are, for
reasons not necessary to state, supposed to be the extreme limit of re-
quirement. Thisamount when passedin one hour — already a serious loss
of time compared with the filtration itself, which consumes but three with
30 per cent, of coal — gave at iiuishiug-off a sweet-water still running
at an average analysis of: solids, 0.77; sucrose, 5.0 ; reducing sugars,
0.52; exponent, 73.87. Assuming the 49 per cent, of retained moisture

106

on the 670 pounds of cake to be juice diluted to the same figures, we
should have :

Pounds.

As water .",28. :J0

As contained solids .. 23. 83

As dilute juico 352.13

equal to 25.5 per cent, of the cakes' weight, which would mean the loss
per operation of 670x0.525x0.05=17.58 pounds sucrose, or 352x0.05
=17.60 pounds sucrose, or to 17.60x46.1=811.36 pounds sucrose per
day's work of 60,000 gallons of juice, using 30 per cent, of lignite.

As a matter of fact, analysis of the cake showed this to contain 2.8
per cent, sucrose, or 18.76 pounds, of. the latter per pressing — a seeming
paradox, dispelled by physical examination. This sufficed to reveal how
the water, first finding its way past the cake on its line of contact with
the iron frame, thoroughly lixiviated the extreme peripheral portions of
this, afterwards to pass here in important volumes without effecting
any good purpose, while yet having accomplished only a very partial
depletion of more central parts. Here was met the third and 'last
serious technical objection to lignite ; one which, since it is multiplied
by'the number of pressings required for given volumes of juice filtered,
must apply to the use ot any matrix just in proportion as larger or
smaller amounts of this are essential to the results sought.

There appeared to offer two methods of escape from this difficulty,
each, however, involving a dilemma. Lower lixiviating pressures, while
producing much better effects, prolonged the time required for the
operation so far beyond the reasonable as would need double or treble
the filter-press plant. Increased quantities of water employed reduced
the exponent, prolonged the time, and increased the evaporation corre-
spondingly. A third expedient was less effective, but offered some col-
lateral advantages, to wit, more perfect pulverization of the matrix.
There can be no reasonable doubt that the finer the state of division to
which brown coal is reduced the more rapid becomes filtration, the more
complete the decolorization effected, the more solid its cake, and the
lower its final p£r cent, of retained jwice. Sifted through the finest of
millers7 silk bolting-cloth, it performs better duty in every respect than
otherwise. It is advisedly stated, and with positiveness, after repeated
experiment, that lignite can not be too finely prepared, on a large scale
at least, for cane- juice filtration, by any mechanical means at present
command. Dissolved even in strong alkalis and reprecipitated as an
impalpable powder, its efficiency is yet further enhanced.

As a last recourse higher juice pressures, even up to 300 pounds per
square inch on the small press, were used. This, though it unquestion-
ably left remaining a cake charged likewise with less juice and so uni-
formly compact as to be better adapted to displacement, again was
attended with too serious a loss of time, both in finishing off and in
subsequent lixiviation, to compensate the advantage in sugar redeemed
or evaporation avoided. Pressures in excess of 100 pounds per square
inch are, besides, not feasible in industrial practice.

A single industrial run of twenty-four hours was finally made Janu-
uary 16th and 17th with brown coal, with intent primarily to develop and
locate any unforeseen mechanical difficulties incident to continuous work.
Numerous such arose, of course, each happily, however, suggesting at
once its own certain remedy. If, technically, this large effort was not
as satisfactory as might have been anticipated from the painstaking ar-
rangements made for and well-organized and precise management ac-

107

corded it, it was yet successful beyond all expectation in solving those
problems which must ever attach in cane-juice work to the application
in filter-presses on a considerable manufacturing basis, of any matrix
whatever. It removed at a stroke all necessity for the yet more ex-
tensive operations which, as you know, had previously been proposed.

It is needless here to weary you with the details of this day's run, which,
with its antecedents rather than with its consequents, demonstrated
conclusively, as is believed, that while the filtration of the entire body
of defecated juice thus, with brown coal, stands well among the mechan-
ical possibilities, its application can by no moans now conceived with
us be rendered remunerative to the Louisiana industry. This your dis-
cernment will already have made quite as clear to you by what precedes,
as it can by any present comparison between the weights and polariza-
tions of its resulting products and those customary to the establishment
in its treatment of like raw materials. Sinch data, indeed, await your
command, but indicate to me no variation in rendement beyond that at-
tributable to the accidents and incidents common with e very-day factory
experience. There occurred nothing of the oft and persistently pre-
dicted clogging, either of pumps, conduits, presses, or cloths. The cloths
at the end of twenty-four hours showed no loss of transmitting power,
and were washed with surprising ease.

In quality of products, no doubt, some advantage was recognized to
accrue, bone-coal not being employed in the factory. Notwithstanding,
in this particular also, disappointment was felt. In no other respect
than this, surely, did the results of this experiment compare even favor-
ably with those secured by Mr. G. L. Spencer, in 1886, with the Rem-
mers and Williamson wood-char process, under the patronage of your
Department at its Magnolia Station, as these stand officially reported in
your Bulletin No. 15 (pp. 20-25, inclusive). So much more effective has
vegetable char than brown coal been shown also in our own work, both
as a filtering and as a defecating agent, that, having abandoned the lat-
ter altogether, experimentation since several weeks with the former, in
a laboratory way, with seed-cane, has now been in seemingly successful
progress here. The following is not an unfair comparison, so far as ex-
perience yet teaches, between the two articles applied to juices somewhat
deteriorated by long storage of canes :

Matrix required
on weight of su-
crose.

Improvement of
purity coeffi-
cient.

Decolorization
sulphured.

13 row n coal

Per cent.
30 to 45

0 30 to 1 90

Per cent.
60 to 80

Wood char

6 to 12

1. 50 to 4. 30

6 Jto 12

Lignite presents other disadvantages, as well, in comparison with
wood charcoal. Upon concentration to sirup, juice filtered with what-
ever percentage of it, whether reduced with the low temperatures of
vacuum evaporation or under atmospheric pressure, gives invariably
au additional precipitate of matter probably rendered insoluble solely
by the increase of density, No such precipitate lias at any time, with any
defecating agent, been observed after lilt ration with wood coal. I low-
weak is its absorptive power, beyond that for coloring matters, is shown
by the fact that, after filtration through paper alone, an improvement
cf but 0.03 in the exponent was secured to sirups from the ordinary lime

108

defecation by subsequent treatment with 30 per cent, of the lignite.
Below are the averages:

[Concentrated in double effect.]

Sirup.

Solids.

Sucrose, i Glucose.

Expo-
nent.

Glucose ;
ratio. '

After primary filtrat ion

57 60

47. 2 4. 55

81.94

9.64

After subsequent treatment
with 30 per cent, lisruite --
Rise in purity coefficient

62.70

51.4 4.76

81.97

9.58

with lignite

0.03

Although when freshly ground, and yet containing from 30 to 35 per
cent, of hyroscopic moisture, it can be readily brought to mix intimately
by mechanical means with the juices, this is scarcely to- be accomplished
in the large and regular quantities required if, having been long pre-
pared, desiccation to 15 or 20 per cent, has not somehow been prevented ;;
in which state, if sufficiently comminuted, it excels not only the kneading;
requirements of patent flour fourfold but becomes even dangerous from
liability to spontaneous combustion. This infers the necessity for a
grinder on the premises, with engine, foundations, sifters, elevators, mix-
ers, shafting, belting, and their like ad libitum, in a structure apart from
the factory building proper, which last would needs be protected from the
attendant dust, as another serious sugar-making complication and care.
Such a plant has been estimated, by a probably competent European
engineer, to cost, for a 60,000-pound diurnal output, erected upon thia
property, exclusive of the presses and their immediate appurtenances,
but inclusive of building, not less than $10,000. Wood coal can, on the
other hand, safely be prepared during the leisure of idle months, at
home or elsewhere, and be mixed in the greatly reduced amounts called
for, as wanted, with the most simple and inexpensive devices or be
stored without injury or danger from season to season. Even wood
char, however, for satisfactory nitration, should also contain a con-
siderable percentage of moisture when ground. Otherwise the first
run of liquor is likely to come charged with the char, requiring refiltra-
tion. It appears that this, unlike lignite, may be rendered in part toa
pulverulent, which last the enforced presence of sufficient moisture at
the time of its reduction is believed to prevent.

Brown coal, again, is not known to exert even a favorable mechan-
ical action on the soil's productiveness ; that wood char exercises valu-
able functions, in this regard is well understood among agronomists.
If in the ordinary filter-pressing of scums and sediments well-nigh the
en tire fertilizing content of the juice itself is already secured, leaving no-
credit for such properly to be conceded to either, for this mechanical ad-
vantage of charcoal something may well be deducted from its estimated
first cost to manufacture. It presumably absorbs from the juice, also,
fertilizing material in excess of the brown coal, equivalent to the addi-
tional rise it secures in the exponent of this. The aggregate bulk of
brown coal required would be such as might well preclude economic
distribution over the fields.

Considering the quality of the native brown coals as yet examined,,
the cost of transportation, and, if imported, the duty upon such enor-
mous quantities of these as are demanded, the price of vegetable charr
it appears, should compare most favorably with them throughout the

109

Louisana sugar belt. Brown coal, in sugar work, demands also a royalty
under letters patent ; the patents upon wood char, in this application,
have been permitted to lapse. Brown coal can not be revivified. Wood
char, it is believed, can be reburned by superheated steam in any state
of comminution, if found desirable. It remains to be known from the dis-
tillation of which variety of wood, however, the best quality of the last-
named article for the purpose proposed is to be obtained. As saw-dust,
oak is known to perform best, probably because of its excess in tannic
acid.

As of application with whatever matrix employed it is pertinent
only to add, as a further result of our experience in the matter, a few
convictions touching the appliances best suited to the treatment of juice
in considerable volumes.

The advantage of duplex, double-acting plunger pumps, extra large
for their duty and operated at low-piston speeds, with exceedingly ca-
pacious air vessels and sensitive safety-valves placed close to the pumps,
the last of equal conducting capacity with the feed-pipes, was fully in-
dicated. To thus insure, by every means, against sudden variations of
pressure, such, especially, as the vibratory pulsations inseparable from
ordinary pumping plants, seemed essential to a cake of maximum
uniformity and uniformly well adapted to lixiviation in all its parts,
as before insisted. With the lixiviating apparatus itself this complete-
ness in erection is even more prominently to be indorsed, except that,
as no grit is here to be encountered, piston-pumps should suffice. A
continuous stream of liquid running from the safety-valves, both juice
and lixiviating, should be maintained during operation. In the most
perfect practice no approach to theoretical displacement has been found
to occur. This supplementary process is, unfortunately, at the most we
have been able to make it, little more than has been expressed with the
word lixiviation. Whiting and highly colored liquids render its study
facile.

The absolute necessity to the process of chamber presses, whether
top, bottom, or central feed, and, conversely, the total uusuitability of
frame-presses in general to it, was left in no doubt. Each operation
consumes so short an interval that a large percentage of total time is
spent in emptying. A chamber-press can be emptied readily in one-
half the period consumed by one of the frame variety for the same num-
ber of cakes. As the cloths need be removed not oftener than twice a
week the loss from this source, in employing such, is negligible. It is
not true that cloths wear most rapidly from use in chamber presses, ex-
cept these be ill constructed. The tendency during lixiviation which
the water exhibits, however this be fed and no matter how superla-
tively perfect the cake is, to cut of itself a ready and continuous chan-
nel about the cake's peripheral joint with the iron frame, has been men-
tioned. This results in a sludge formed along the cake's feather edges
which, upon opening the press, runs more or less, despite the best effort,
down the frame's sides, especially along its bottom portions, couipro
mising the joint which this afterwards makes with its adjoining cloth
Following three rounds with brown coal, such a press can not be made
tight and after four or five may even refuse to close, except the surfaces
be laboriously cleansed with iron scrapers. In chamber presses the peri-
pheral joint is made between cake and cloth and not between cake and
iron. From this fact alone it is far more perfect. Its form, however, if
properly designed, is of yet greater importance and, presenting no
longer necessarily a line of least resistance, reduces the chance of sludge,
besides insuring, other things equal, a more uniform and complete dis-

110

placement with reduced quantities of water by preventing the forma-
tion of such water channels as those before described. If, by any chance,
a small amount of semi-liquid material here runs in like man uer, notwith-
standing, this interferes in but half degree with a press joint now made
between two thicknesses of the fabric instead of between iron and one
such. Although in top and bottom fed chamber presses the liquor
inter-ports of the individual chambers may be of greater diameter than
those possible with frames, yet from liability to obstruction the center
feed is to be preferred.

Any filter-press constructed for the use of brown coal or any of its
congeners should be recessed for 1J instead of for 1 inch cakes. This
statement will not remain true except that in all cases the wisdom of
employing the matrix in excess in confirmed. A yet greater thickness
in these might then perhaps prove still more advantageous were it not
the limit, at which, in such presses, the cloths have been made to stand.
Without attempting an explanation of the fact it remains that with
chambers of increased thickness higher results per square foot of filter-
ing area are attained, this dimension even doubled, curiously enough
as it would seem, requiring but a very small fraction more of time for
cake completion than before, so long as a slight excess only of matrix is
in each instance employed. This is best illustrated in starch manufact-
ure. Speed in filtration is, then, increased by this innovation, except
for deficiency of matrix ; a relative reduction in the amount of sweet-
water to be dealt with is secured and proportionate time is saved in
emptying.

Since it consumes no more time to empty thirty chambers presenting
400 square feet of filtering area than thirty aggregating but 220, presses
of the former size should alone be used for the purpose under consider-
ation. Such are decidedly cheaper in first cost per square foot of filter-
ing surface ; areas readily handled and kept tight, and require, propor-
tionately to the work done, fewer laborers. They occupy scarcely more
space.

The presses should be worked in batteries after the English plan,
instead of by rotation, as practiced in Germany. This avoids a fall of
pressure, with consequent loss of time and a cake ill suited to lixiviation
in the other active presses, when one freshly prepared is set in operation.
It also permits, which is of much consequence, low pressures at the
start, which are gradually increased to high at the finish — a practice
precluding all attempt at governing the pressure at the pump's throttle
by an attached pressure regulator.

A precipitate invariably following evaporation, by whatever means
accomplished, of juice filtered through brown coal, the filtration of
sirup was accorded some study. For this purpose from 12 to 15 per
cent, of lignite on the weight of sugar operated upon was found neces-
sary to satisfactorily rapid work, previous treatment notwithstanding.
Again the improvement in purity was not marked, averaging 0.82 ; that
in color being the more conspicuous result, at about 40 per cent, of this
removed.

For sirups from unfiltered juices the ratio of lignite had, of course, to
be increased until percentages approaching those employed with juice
had been attained. Equal amounts would probably have been necessary,
in terms of sugar, except for scums removed and some 8 to 10 per cent,
of the juice itself already filtered with these, decantation of clear liquor
from skimmings not having been practiced. Mere bulk, thus, in the
filtrate, was seen to exercise no perceptible influence in this work. The
dilution of sirup by the addition of water in any amount can, of course,

Ill

iniio wise reduce the quantity of coal required, which is determined alone
by the quantity aud quality of non-sugar dealt with. Neither the net
result in purity nor in color was equivaleutin filtered sirup from uufiltered
juice to that secured in uufiltered sirups from filtered juice. The glucose
ratios of sirups first filtered as such were always considerably higher
than those of unfiltered sirups derived from filtered juices of like quality.
It is supposed that by the filtration of juice — though this is left in all
cases more acid by the process— certain active inverting agents are re-
moved, thus reducing the losses otherwise sustained in concentration.
The brown coal also removed an amount of reducing sugars relatively
larger than that of sucrose lost in the operation, the glucose ratio being
almost uniformly lower after than before filtration, whether of juice or
sirup. The ash is also reduced.

Not above 550 gallons of sirup from unfiltered juice could be put
through a 30 frame Kroog press with 25 per cent, of brown coal on the
weight of its sucrose at one operation, this, complete, occupying about
four hours. A J-iuch frame or chamber was found ample in the treat-
ment of sirups, but even for this work 400-foot presses, it is thought,
would be preferred. Thinner frames would be necessary with reduced
percentages of lignite. Lower pressures than those mentioned for juice
gave the more satisfactory results, which, also, should be extremely
steady.

The cake from sirup nitrations following that of the juice, with or
without lixiviation, when mixed with the amount of fresh coal necessary
to bring the total of this to the usual standard, was found to perform
about as well on a fresh supply of juice as an equal total of fresh coal;
the amount of the latter being thus proportionately reduced. In prac-
tice this would obviate the difficulty of sweet water from the sirup
filters. Wood char was given no trial in connection with concentrated
liquors. The whole subject of s^rup filtration, in filter presses, merits
more thorough investigation than circumstances have yet permitted at
this factory, although success with such can scarcely supplant the far
greater necessity for previous treatment of the juices.

Experiments, by no means exhaustive, were also made with the Bauer
process. This failed from the first. The mucilaginous impurities, pass-
ing through the interstices of the bone char, reached and occluded at
once the pores of the cloth, thus bringing operations to a speedy ter-
mination with every trial. The cloths were washed with great difficulty.
To fully meet every prejudice, the entirely inutile use of various fabrics
was resorted to. With bone-black, from coarse to finest, the result was
always the same. Indeed, as is well known, animal char in sugar
work is an extremely poor filtering medium, no matter how skillfully
revivified, and except for the preliminary Taylor or bag filtration could
scarcely be used after the manner or in the per cents, at present com-
mon, except upon the highest centrifugal goods, even in the refining of
sugars from which the major portion of non-sugar has already been
removed, upon the plantation, in scums, sediments, aud molasses — sub-
stances which are yet left remaining with us in our treatment of juices.
It is imperative with this article, in our work at least, that it be used
in quantities quite beyond the utmost ability of filter-presses to accom-
modate.

Notwithstanding the meager results as yet secured, eventual suc-
cess in the economic mechanical filtration of the entire body of defe-
cated juice is not altogether despaired of. Its difficulties have been
greatly underrated. All the juices thus far dealt with have been tne
product of milling under pressures attaining from 65 to 78 per cent.

112

of these upon the weight of canes crushed. So successful throughout
has been the routine work in this establishment with skimmings and
settlings from all manner of canes and with many modes of defeca-
tion, and so small has been at any time the immediate improvement
in the purity co-efficient attributable to it, and yet, by comparison,
so easy and rapid a second filtration, as to have forced a conviction
that in but an exceedingly small part of the total non-sugar resides
well nigh the whole difficulty. This probably minute portion of espe-
cially refractory material has been traced, as an insoluble, suspended
impurity, to raw juice direct from the rolls, which presents in the filter
practically all the perplexities encountered after defecation, and may
be followed thence quite to the molasses. The microscope has not
identified it at 100 diameters. Fermentation fails to remove it. Al-
though itself probably inert and harmless, it suffices to render most diffi-
cult or altogether impossible a process which, in effecting an immediate
improvement, if only of several points in the exponent, would yet suffice
before the by-product was reached to add directly or indirectly a de-
cided increment to the otherwise possible rendement. Your success in
filter-pressing carbonated diffusion juices this season of 1887-788, at the
Magnolia Station, leads to the hope that this small part, whatever it
may be, is either in great measure eliminated from the artificial juice
by diffusion, or else is amenable to chemical treatment (other than
carbonation), such as it is reasonable to suppose will not escape ade-
quate research. In either case the benefit to accrue would become im-
portant to the local industry, the substitution of osmosis for pressure in
juice extraction by large central factories now seeming as if eventually
inevitable.

It is proposed by the proprietor that the investigation of this subject
shall continue at this place uninterruptedly throughout another season.
At his desire I express the hope that it may not be impossible with
you to detail a chemist from your department to aid in this search for
an improved defecation. It is not to be overlooked how, to the present,
your department, in pursuing its inquiries with respect of sugar manu-
facture, has neglected altogether the sulphur regimen universally
found in Louisiana's practice, excepting only at its previou / chosen
station.

With much respect, sir, I am yours, very truly,

W. J. THOMPSON.

Dr. H. W. WILEY,

Chemist, U. S. Department of Agriculture,

Washington, D. 0.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FIG. 1. Ensilage cutter used at Fort Scott for cutting cane into convenient lengths

for cleaning.
FIG. 1 (6i«). View of cutter used at Fort Scott for preparing the pieces of cane after

cleaning for the diffusion battery.
FIG. 2. View of the top of the battery at Fort Scott.
FIG. 3. View under the battery at Fort Scott, showing car for removal of exhausted

chips.
FIG. 4. Outline of apparatus used for cutting and cleaning cane and preparing it for

diffusion at Rio Grande, New Jersey.
FIG. 5. View of diffusion battery used at Rio Grande, New Jersey.

15449— No. 17 8 113

JlppanituaforPreparing Cane fir DifJu8V)Tis3attery

INDEX.

A.

Page.

Attorney-General, copy of statement of facts submitted to 63

Available sugar in sorghum 10

Analysis necessary in sugar factory .«,„ 44

B.

Bartbelemy, E. C,, instructions sent to 77

Bauer's process, experiments witb Ill

Belle City Manufacturing Company, cutter made by 6

Benny wortb, Hon. John, erection of sugar factory by 21

Boiling to grain, description of 37

Bounty on sorgbum sugar , 19

Brown coal and wood cbar in tbe filtration of cane juices and sirups 98

C.

Calumet sugar house, experiments at.. 99

Cane crusbers, experiments with ^

Cane slicer built by Sangerhaiiser Company 81

Cane sugar, inversion of 82

Carbonate of lime, use of, in battery 11

Central factories 55

Centrifugal machines at Fort Scott 39

Chemical work at Fort Scott, summary of 15

Rio Gr.-tnde, summary of 71

Chips, disposition of 9U

Coal consumed in diffusion experiments 94

Collier, Dr. Peter, studies on sorghum 21

Colwell, A. W., assistance rendered by 83

Commissioners of Agriculture, encouragement of sorghum by successive 26

Congress, aid solicited from 23

Cowgill, Prof. E. B., report of 21

Cutting and cleaning apparatus 41

Crampton, Dr. C. A., average analyses from tables prepared by 11

abstract of report of 15

Crystallizing sugars, experiments in 71

Cyclone, diffusion building injured by 82

D.

Data, analytical, obtained from first diffusion run 83

second diffusion run 84

third diffusion run 86

fourth diffusion run 87

fifth diffusion run 88

Defecation, experiments in

1 fensmore Bros., report of 56

Denton, A. A., report of

Department of Agriculture, early investigations by 21

further work of ~2

Diffusion, description of the process of

battery, simplification ot 40

first trial of 83

115

116

Page.

Diffusion, second trial of 84

third trial of 85

fourth trial of 86

fifth trial of 87

trials, summary of results of 89

juices, characteristics of 89

experiments in Louisiana, description of 95

Double effect evaporators 36

Dugan, John, master of diffusion, experiments by 96

Dymoud & McCall, Messrs. , members of advisory committee 9ft

E.

Edsou, Hubert, abstract of report of 71

Exhaust chips, utilization of 13

Experiments with diffusion at Lawrence, La 77

F.

Factory, cost of 12

Fake, N. J., chemical work by 96

Farmer's part most important in sugar making 32

Fehliug's solution of copper : 45

Field, J. A., &Co., mill made by 7

Filtering juices, experiments in 6

Filtration experiments, table of 100,101,103,104

Fort Scott, experiments with sorghum at 5

company, organization of 24

factory, the work at 33

G.

Grape sugar test 45

H,

Heat, effects on sorghum juices 11

Hinze, Frederick, services at Fort Scott 37

Historical sketch of sorghum plant '. 21

Hughes, H. A., report of 67

cost of sugar factories estimated by 73

I.

Improving the seed 47

Ingalls, Hon. J. J., letter of transmission to 97

Inspector, Prof. E. B. Cowgill appointed as 18

Introductory letter —

Inversion of sugar in the diffusion cells 35

in battery, prevention of 8

Kleeman, F., experiments on lignite by 91

L.

Lawrence, La,, experiments at 77

Louisiana sugar experiment station, native coals obtained from 102

Letters patent granted to M. S wenson 61

Liebold, S. A. , & Co., erection of sorghum factory by 21

Lignite, report on, by W. J. Thompson 99

experiments with, by W. J. Thompson , 91

F. Kleeman 91

use of, in Louisiana 91

experiments with, on sorghum

117

M.

Page.

Methods of analysis in sugar work 44

Mill and diffusion, comparative yield by 92

O.

Optical method of sugar analysis 46

Ottawa, Kans., report of work done at 23

P.

Parkinson, Hon. W. L., report of, to board of directors 26

Plumb, Senator, labors in behalf of an appropriation by 23

Q.

Quantity of juice drawn from each cell 93

R.

Remiuers & Williamson, wood char process of ..... 107

Rio Grande, N. J., experiments at 67

summary of chemical work at 71

S.

Sandys, R. M. & Co. , erection of sorghum factory by 21

Saugerhaiiser Company, cutter built by 81

Maschiuen-fabrik lignite imported from 100

Scientific work, need of, in sorghum factory 41

Scovell, Prof. M. A. , factory of 22

iSchulze, Ernest, assistance rendered by 82

Scums and sediment, disposition of 90

Season of working sugar, length of 51

at Rio Grande 69

Seed selection, improvement of sorghum by 48

Sieg, R., assistance rendered as consulting engineer 96

instructed to build cutter 82

Skimmings, disposition of, at Fort Scott 36

Silo, analysis of juice of cane, kept in 52

Frank Stroback's experiments in keeping cane in 51

storing cane in 51

Sims, William, secretary of State board of agriculture, instructions to Prof. E.

B. Cowgillby 19

Sorghum, can the farmer make his own sugar from 56

available sugar in 10

cane, comparison of, with Louisiana cane 47

how far it may be hauled 56

crop of Rio Grande 68

industry, needs of 13

future of 50

in Kansas 18

seed, crop of 29

Spencer, G. L., experiments in filtration by, in 1886 107

in charge of lime-kiln and'carbonatatiou apparatus 96

Stammer, Dr. Karl, text book of sugar making by 94

State of Kansas, encouragement of sorghum industry, by 25

Statement of facts submitted to the Attorney-General by the Commissioner of

Agriculture 63

Sterling Sirup Works, experiments in air evaporation at 57

St roback, Frank, experiments in keeping cane in silo, by 51

Sugar factories, capacity of 40

estimated cost of, by H. A. Hughes 73

making, outline of process of 31

Planters Association, reports of committee chosen by 78

refineries 60

Sweuson, M., letters patent granted to 61

report of 5

118

T.

Page.

Thompson, W.J., experiments by, on lignite 91

report on lignite by 99

Trial runs with sorghum i)

w.

Warmoth, Gov. H. C., paper read before the Planters' Association, by 92

aid rendered by 96-

Weber, Professor, factory of 22

Wiley, Prof. H. W. , experiments with diffusion in 1883, by 22

Wilkinson, J. B., jr., assistance rendered by ~. ..* 9G

Y.

Yaryan quadruple effect, used in diffusion experiments 88

Yield of sugar from sorghum, average 10

obtained at Fort Scott 4£

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