The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-07-23
HOW SUGAR is MADE.

The process of +" sugar-making," in its
essentials, is simple enough matter of
cookery. The first care ofthe producer
is to get all the sugar possible out of the
cane or grass or root, either by squeez-
ing out the juice. or washing out the
sugar the sugar-maple saves the sugar.
maker this trouble, delivering 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 charcoal it is then
boiled, to evaporate as much of the
water as possible, and crystalline solid
sugar it is then cooled, and the mo-
lasses drained off, leaving the soft, dark
sugars, in which each crystal has its thin
coating of molasses, Or dried by cen
trifugal machine, as clothes are dried in
the whirling drier, whence the water
flies out, or further clarified and left to
crystalline in white loaves, which are
sawed, or crushed, or ground, or powder
ed into several varieties of fine white
sugar. Most of these earlier processes
are performed on the plantation, but in
many cases they are repeated and the
sugar carried through the final process
in the great refneries. Refining is,
in fact, little more than a finer repeti-
ton of the processes of making" and
to do these simple things on a great
scale and in the best way is the sole pur-
pose of those enormous beehives of in
dustry.
The sugar-maker's first aim is to get
from the cane as much of its percentage
of juice as it can be induced to give up.
The juice is enclosed in little cells of
lignose, or woody fibre, which make the
other tenth of the canes weight. There
are three ways of extracting the Juice
by crushing, by soaking out the sugar
by the process of diffusion" or by a
combination of crushing and of macera-
ton in water. Crushing or grinding the
cane is process in use from the early
times, as seen in primitive sugar-mills
OF, the East. which consists of the hollow
ed stump Of a tree, within which is a
grinding pestle worked by oxen treading
their round, driven from the arm of the
bar by one man, while another feeds in
pieces of cane, one by one, and takes
out the crushed remains. A mill al
most as primitive as this is still in use in
Arkansas.
The sugar-house on a great plantation
is large, high building, in the centre of
the farm, to which roads or tramways
lead from all directions. AS load of
cane comes up, it is fed upon an endless
belt or railway, which carries it up slow
ly to the crushing-mill, an affair of SIM
pie construction but of enormous power.
The crushers are great rollers of cast
iron, in pairs or triplets, sometimes one
set, sometimes more, working at pres
sure 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 opinions
as to whether it is better to crush rapid
.ly or slowly, and to crush once only or
to repeat the operation with increasing
pressures. The juice flows from the
crushers in one direction; tae residual |
cane, now known as begass," is carried
Oft in another by an endless belt, to be
used either for dressing for the cane
fields, or as fuel in the heating processes
which the juice is next to undergo.
One of the great improvements in mod |
ern sugar-making has been the develop
ment Of furnaces which get most of their
fuel from the begass.-R. r. B0oUker, IN
Ha,per's Magazine.