New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-06-30
How Sugar is Made.
Harper's Magazine.

Harpers Magazine.
The process OF sugar making" in its
essentials is simple enough matter of
cookery The first care of the pro-
ducer is to get all the sugar possible
out OF the cane or grass root, either
by squeezing out the juice Or washing
out the sugar; the sugar maple saves
the sugar maker this trouble, deliver
ing the sap ready for the boiler. The
juice is then cleared OF its impurities,
as coffee is cleared by the white of an
egg, or water is filtered through char
coal; 1t is then boiled, to evaporate as
much of the water as possible and
crystalize the solid sugar; it is then
cooled and the molasses drained off,
leaving the soft dark sugars, in which
each crystal has it's thin coating OF
molasses, or drained by centrifugal
machine, as clothes are dried in the
whirling drier, whence the water flies
out, and, further clarified or left to
crystalize in white loaves, which are
sawed or crushed or ground or pow
dered into the several varieties OF fine
white sugar. Most of these earlier
processes are performed on the plan
tations, but in many cases they are
repeated and the sugar carried through
the final process in the great reineries.
Refining" is, in tact, little more than
a finer repetition of the processes OF
"making," and to do these simple
things on a great scale, and in the best
way, isthesole purpose Of those enor-
nous bechives OF industry.
The sugar makers first aim is to get
from the cane as much Of it's percent
age of juice as it can be induced to give
up. The juice is inclosed in little cells
of lignose or woody fibre, which make
the canes weight There are three
ways of extracting the juice-by crush
ing, by soaking out the sugar by the
process OF diffusion" or by com
bination ofcrushing and enumeration
in water. Crushing Or grinding the
cane is a process in use from the
earliest times, as is seen in the print
tive sugar mills of the East, Which
consist of the followed stump OF g.
tree, within which is grinding pestle
worked by oxen treading their round,
driven from the arm Of the bar by one
man, while another feeds in the pieces
of cane, one by one, and takes out the
crushed remains A mill almost as
primitive is still in use in Arkansas.
The sugar-house on a great planta-
ton, is a large high building, the
centre Of the farm, to which roads or
tramways lead from all directions. AS
a load OF cane comes up it is fed upon
an endless belt or railway, which car
ries it up slowly to he crushing mil,
an affair o. simple construction but
Of enormous power. The crushers
are great rollers of cast iron, in pairs
or triplets, sometimes one set, some
times more, working at a pressure Of
from fifty to eighty pounds to the
square inch, and SO arranged as to
give slightly before any extraordinary
strain. There are all sorts of opin-
aons as to whether it is better to crush
rapidly or slowly, and to crush once
only or to repeat the operation with
increasing pressure. The juice flows
from the crushers in one direction;
the residual cane known as "begass, y
is carried off in another by an endless
belt, to be used either as dressing for
the cane fields or as fuel in the cheating
process which the JUICE is next to un.
dergo. One Of the great improve
ments in modern sugar making has
been the development of furnaces
which get most Of their fuel from the
| begaSS.