The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-30
THE SUGAR INDUSTRY,

THE SUGAR INDUSTRY.
The chemical division Of the Department of
Agriculture has issued bulletin Oh the sugar
industry Of the United States of over 200
pages. which is classic Of saccharine matters.
Professor Wiley has spent two years in exper-
imenting and accumulating the matters herein
set forth. The total value of imports Of sugar
and syrups for 1884 is $1O3, s84, 76o; of domes-
tic sugars and molasses, $43, 037, 400. The
value Of cane and sorghum sugars is put
at 5 cents pound, and molasses at 80 cents a
gallon, in the above estimate. Maple sugar
is put at 10 cents, and molasses at IS cents
gallon. The domestic product Of cane sugar
and molasses is twenty millions of dollars;
maple, five millions; sorghum, nine millions;
beet, one hundred and three thousand GALL made
at Alvarado, Cal,) and glucose (corn-starch
sugar., nine millions.
The corn-starch glucose trade is carried on
in seven States has capital Of ten millions
of dollars uses sixty thousand bushels of corn
daily, and employs five thousand workmen,
and gives profit of Is per cent. bushel Of
corn will make thrty-two pounds Of sugar
and fifteen pounds of feed. Sugars cost two
cents pound more to the consumer in San
Francisco than they do in New York, the
variation being due to the cost of freight.
The consumption of sugar per capita in the
Union is constantly increasing. In 1881 it
was forty -three pounds, and in 1884 it was
fifty pounds. From 1876 to 1885 the con-
sumption in England rose from ffty-nine to
sixty seven pounds per capita. Professor
Wiley estimates that in 1894, with popula-
ton of 10, 100000, the United States will re-
quire 5, 200, 900, 900 pounds, and be the great
sugar market of the world. Sugar has ceased
to be a luxury and has become staple article
Of food. 1t requires a steamer of the largest
size, landing full cargo at New York every
day in the year, to supply the American trade.
The steady shrinkage of values during the
year 1884 has brought the market value of
raw sugar to less than the cost of production,
and to the lowest figure recorded in thirty five
years. In 1850 this was SIS. 81 hundred; in
1864, the highest, 1924; in 1881, $7.62, and
in 1884, $500. These prices were for good,
refined Cuba sugar. AS TO duties, sugar and
molasses from the Sandwich Islands are free
from other countries, molasses containing not
over Sc per cent. crystallizable sugar by the
polarscope is four cents gallon; above So
per cent, eight cents a gallon. Raw sugar
tenths cents per pound All home products
are free. The United States gives no bounty
for home sugars. The State Of New Jersey
pays one cent pound for sugar made from
sorghum, and also dollar ton for cane.
This bounty was for five years, and ceases in
1856. A similar law has cost Massachusetts,
but 81, 600. Germany grants large bounty
on all exported sugars This bounty
has so stimulated the beet-sugar trade
that the German makers have been able to
sell refined sugars in London at prices very
near the cost of production, less the tax.
The German product rose from 644, 775 tons
of 9, 240 pounds in 1851 to J. 100000 tons in
1884, under the bounty stimulus. And yet
American refners are enabled to compete in
the London market with the bounty fed sugar
of Europe.
The beet sugar product is a very constant
factor in the worlds annual output. The
variations are in great part due to light or
heavy crops in either Brazil, the Philippine is
lands, or in Cuba and the other West Indies
OF the total import for 1884 of l, l43, 500 tons,
Cuba and Porto Rico sent nearly one-half, the
other West Indies one-sixth Brazil one
eighth, the Sandwich Islands one twentieth,
while 1-2 per cent was beet-root sugar. New
York shipped last year SO, CAB tons of refined
sugar to Great Britain.
The report is one of more than usual inter-
est, and is presented in such detail, and withal
so excellently classified, that it is model of
its kind, and cannot but be of value to all in
terested in the sugar product.
m
DIRECTOR OF THE MINT BURcHARD, in his
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