The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-11-28

are precisely like those OF sugar cane.
The sugar already made this year amounts
to about $50 900 pounds; the molasses,
over 10000 gallons. Assuming that the
remainder of the crop yields at the same
rate, Rio Grande will sell in the neighbor-
hood of 100000 pounds. The seed,
amounting to twenty-five bushels per acre,
is fed to swine, and the pork pays the
whole cost of cultivation, besides produce
ing great deal of excellent manure.
The pressed cane is burned in the fur.
naces to evaporate the juice, and produces
large quantity of ashes, which is also
used on the land.
CHAMPAIGN.
The company has this year 615 acres Of
cane, while last year it had but about
250 Its quality is better than last year,
August and September furnishing great
deal of sunshine, which is needed to de-
velop the sugar in the juices of the grow
ing and ripening cane. Some fields of
cane have been frosted 30 as to make it
Improbable to work for sugar, but with
out materially injuring it for syrup. But
the most of the crop is in good condition
for sugar making. About 100 acres of
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balance by farmers on contract, the COM
pany paying $3.50 per ton for cane deliv-
cred at the mill, topped but not stripped.
The average yield is about nine tons per
acre. They run about $50 tons every
twenty.four hours. The rolls, three to
each set, are four feet in length by thirty
inches in diameter. The power is so am.
pie that with cane fed solidly from four
to six inches deep, there is no clogging
or check to the motion, which is twenty
two feet per minute. The second set of
rolls is about twelve feet beyond the first,
carrier taking the partly pressed cane
from the first to the second. On its pas
sage it is moistened by jets of hot water
from perforated horizontal pipe some
two feet above the carrier. The second
pressure is immense. The bagasse mostly
comes through entirely separated at the
| joints. What is not 80 separated is thrown
back, to come through again, by boy
stationed at the tail end of the second
set of rolls. The company claim that by
the use of this second set they save at
least fifteen per cent of juice that would
be lost if only single mill was used.
Last year the firing under the boilers was
by coal alone, and men and teams were
employed to cart the bagasse away to get
rid of it. Now it is all used as fuel, and
supplies two-thirds of all the fuel re.
quired, taking the place of fifteen tons of
coal per day. 1t is carried by the bsgasse
carrier over the front end of the furnace,
and by an ingenious arrangement slides,
fed directly into shafts running down
into each of the four furnaces. The juice
from the mills flows into tank from
which it is pumped into the juice tank
at the extreme top of the building. Here
it is treated to lime to neutralizs the acid
and then drawn off to the defeating
tanks, half story below. These are of
galvanized iron in wooden frames and
supplied with steam coils. The Juice is
brought quickly to boil and the scum
taken off. This flows through pipes to
a tank on the ground outside the build.
ing, and is taken away for feeding hogs.
The defeated juice next passes to the
evaporation of copper, circular, eight
feet in diameter and three feet deep,
the bottom covered with two inch copper
coils. Here it is reduced to 200 Baume
when it is drawn off into settling tanks
When sufficiently cooled it passes to the
bone-black filter, upright cylinders of
boiler iron, eighteen feet in depth and
filled with finely pulverized bone charcoal
From the bottom of the filters the clear
sem:,,syrup flows into tank from which il
| is pumped to reservoirs above the vacuum
pan, into which it is drawn as needed
In boiling in the vacuum pan small
amount only is first let in and boiled at q
temperature of 100, till crystals can be
seen to be forming freely. This can be
ascertained by drawing out q small
amount, spreading it upon glass and hold
ing it between the observer and the light
when the crystals can be clearly seen
Additional quantities of the semi-syrut
are let in from time to time until at the
end of about five hours the pan is full OF
the boiling sugar, when the strike is made
The contents of the pan are discharged
into crystallizing wagons-tanks of boiler
iron five feet long, three wide and two
deep, on iron trucks. These are wheeled
into the crystallizing room, which is kept
at temperature of 80 degrees, where the
capitalization is perfected. When ready
for the centrifugals the wagons are run
| out and their contents dumped into the
mixer, long horizontal trough, in which
horizontal shaft with wooden arms re-
wolves, which thoroughly mixes the mush
sugar. From this it is drawn directly
into the centrifugals on the flor below
These are perforated brass cylinders sus-
pended at the end of a perpendicular
shaft, which makes 1900 revolutions per
minute. The perforated brass cylinders
revolve inside of stationary iron ones.
AS soon as started the centrifugal force
throws the mush sugar against the inside
of the perforated brass. The molasses is
thrown out through the perforstions,
while the crystals are retained inside
The .molssses is retained by the outside
stationary cylinder, and runs off to tanks
through pipe in the bottom. When
sufficiently purged the machine is stopped
the sugar adhering to the inside of the
brass cylinder is scraped off and dis
charged from the bottom into box below
from which it is barrelled, and is then
ready for market. The sugar thus OBJ.
tanned is called frsts. The molasses is
afterward reboiled for sugar, and yields
in seconds about one-qusrter the quantity
of the frsts. The sugar grades from
| yellow G to off A, and finds ready sale al