Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1882-03-23
Sugar Cane in Ohio.

Read by Horace Talcott, at the late
meeting in Ashtabula county:
"The Jefferson Sugar Manufacturing
Company have, under the most discour.
aging circumstances this past year,
proved beyond doubt the possibility
of this work, and from this years ex-
perience confidently believe the patrons
of the factory more fully understand
the necessity of delivering the cane to
the mill in proper condition, and upon
stated times, and hereafter will cheer
fully comply with this absolute necessi-
ty IN order to ensure complete success.
You might just as well expect a
cheese factory to furnish you good
quality of cheese from sour milk as to
presume it possible to manufacture
sugar from decomposed sugar crystals
IN sour cane.
The only hindrance to the manu-
facture of sugar from the Juices O,
corn stalks and cane stalks of all varie-
ties which will come to maturity in our
climate has simply been on account of
a natural acid in the juice sufficient to
prevent granulation, and until Stew
arts discovery, which l will describe
further on, there was no certainty of
favorable results.
The crushing of the juice from the
stalks is easily and perfectly done by
horse or steam power and the power
full crushing m achines now in use.
Guard against failure here. Look
well to this point III the business; the
necessity of keeping closely up. even
with the crusher, can not be too strong
ly urged, because you have large ac-
emulation of juice, it will soon faint
and spoil for sugar. A little lime wa
ter should be put on the rollers at each
stoppage of the machine for the dav,
or even two or three hours, to neutral
ize the acid and keep rollers sweet and
clean.
All the vessels in use for this work
should be kept sweet and clean, the
juice should be thoroughly strained as
fast as it comes from the crusher. 1t
will be a high green color, and stained
by all the different impurities of the
stalk. This should be put into some
kind Of heating pan, usually deep
one, and heat applied Immediately,
either by fire or by steam,
either will answer the same purpose:
continue the heat until it brings the
juice up to $50 or 1S5 degrees, by a
common thermometer Then stir in
the milk of lime quickly in sufficient
quantity to neutralize the acid in the
juice, which is easily told by the use of
delicate chemical litmus paper Of
scarlet color; insert this paper in the
juice, and when lime enough has been
added to promptly change he litmus
paper from scarlet to blue, rest assured
the natural acid is fully absorbed. Let
the heat continue until the juice COM
mences to boil, and then remove it
from the fire instantly, or as soon as
can be done conveniently, by some
method used for that purpose.
There will be thick scum of dirty
looking green foreign matter on top of
the juice which must be skinned off
and not allowed to settle back into the
juice. At the same time all the inn
purities in the juice which are heavier
than the juice itself will precipitate to
the bottom of the vessel in ten or fifteen
minutes. 1t is convenient to have set
Ting cans or tanks to pour the hot
skinned juice into, which are deep,
but as soon rs it is settled, and while it
is yet hot, you must draw Of or pour
of, from the top of the vessel, all the
clear juice until you get down to near
the bottom, where it becomes thick
with sediment. This thick sediment
should be emptied into another deeper
vessel and several patches of it put to-
gether AID allowed to settle the second
time, and more can be saved that will
make good molasses.