, 1881-10-12
refining this into edible sugar. In all
three processes producers here excel.


Considerable improvement has OF late
taken place in the extracting Of sugar
from the cane. In 100 parts of cane there
are, on the average, II parts OF sacchafine
matter. BY the common method OF
extracting this the CAGE is crushed be-
tween heavy rollers, and most Of the
ssccharine matter squeezed out in a juice
or syrup. This Was long thought the
ouly possible Process, though it was well
known that eight to Ten o! these original
parts Of sacchaIlle matter remained a
fixture in the cane. West Indian plan.
ters have to thank the much abused boun-
ties for discovering a remedy for his evil.
TIE excise tax on beet sugar III Austria
was levied on the amount of sugar a ton
OF beet could yield by crushing This vas,
say, FIVE paris in every hundred The
drawback system paid 10 The refner he
amount Of this excise tax on every tive
parts ppr hn1dred he exported. He thus
secured back the amount he had paid
away, but he found enormous profits i'll
the substitution of other methods which
obtained from the beet more parts Of
sugar than the five he could get by
crushing. He found that if, instead of
crushing aud squeezing, he simply sliced
his beet and allowed it to become well
stepped in warm water, he extracted from
the beet II of the Is parts of saccharlne
matter in each 100. Cane-growerS have
not vet adopted generally any actual
g diffusion process, the only difficulty
that vet retardS such act On being the
difficulty of cutting up the cane. But
they havD adopted in DGmerara an inter
mediate process, known as " macefation,"
nv which the cane after one severe
crushing, is passed over steam, gradually
increasing to q heat of 1870 degrees Fab
renheit. 1t is then crushed Il ain, and,
in the end, it has yielded up in the va
ri0us processes IS, at least, OF the IL parts
of saccharine matter it originally con
taf0pd. The exact results of this process
are, however, i'll debate, and more lmpor-
tant even than these is the question OF
pounds, shillingS and pence. Does this
extra yield of IL few parts OF sugar repay
the extra expenditure III plant, machinery,
fuel, labOur, and time 1t is also asserted
that the cane refuse, after this dou6le
crushing, is greatly deteriorated III value
as fuel and i'll many works this refuse,
or megaSs, is the sole fuel used III BOILING
the sugar
It is. however, not at all improbable
InHL ll6 uIIluSlOh IAOON 80 I"AC H'N N'
pie, may, in the future superSede both
the crushing and the " maceratiom" pro.
cesses. The only difficulty is the dividing
the cane into layers sufficiently thin for
each sugar holding cell to come into open
contact with the water. This being
ACCOMPLISHED, the cane is automatically
soaked in 16 fresh liquors for 10 minutes,
each soaking in water gradually rising
to a tempera ure of $50 degrees Fahren-
heit. The machine y requisite is not
expensive, no steam power Is required,
and the proportional amount OF labour
is largely reduced-a fact OF the hrSt
importance in the West ndieS 1T may
be remarked in evidence that In one
factory in Germany, under the old roller
system. 40 tons of beet were worked
every "a hours by the labour of $50 men
the same amount of beet is now worked
in the "a hours, by the new diffusion
process. with the aid of only 224 men,
a reduction of nearly one-third, not only
in the amount of wages paid, out III the
amount of labour it is necessary to pro-
vide. 1t has been reported that this
process has been successfully applied to
cane already in the East Indies and by
certain French manufacturers. There is
no doubt that, if it can be applied to cane
more generally, it will again considerably
lower the cost of production. even to the
exteat of one third,i if we are to believe
that it would free for clarifying 16 of the
II parts of saccharine matter, only eight
or nine of which are obtained by the