Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1888-09-12

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obtained, sooner or later, by adopting the
beet sugar methods. We finally agreed
upon plan, the one of Pusey & Jones, o.
Wilmington, Delaware, manufacturers O.
sugar apparatus and machinery. we tolo
them of the battery of cells which we
wanted constructed, and complete dif'
fusion plant was prepared at that estao,
lishment, to be placed in the Fort Scott
works, in Kansas. That was during tne
second year of my term of office:
We made some sugar. But in all new
enterprises q great many unexpected oD'
stacles occur. and we found difficulty after
difficulty to encounter. AS an obstacle OF
the greatest magnitude we found that by
the diffusion process the juices ofthe leaves
were as thoroughly extracted as the juices
of the stalk that there were certain chem
ical principles in those leaves which were
obnoxious to the production of good
sugar. We had therefore to adopt some
other method, and nearly all of our time
was consumed in trying to overcome these
difficulties. During the first year OF our
labor we had not surmounted them, nor
succeeded as had fondly hoped.
FINE YIELDS OF SUGAR.
We then had to adopt some system to
get rid of these leaves. Where cane is
raised, as in Kansas, by the thousand acres,
employees cannot be obtained to strip the
cane before putting it into the mill as you
YOU do, where you raise two or three acres
of cane. We finally hit upon the plan of
cutting the stalks into strips three inches
in length, carrying these strips upon an
endless chain, and passing them through a
tanning mill, which blew off the leaves
and left nothing but the pure cane. That
first battery of cells which we had manu-
featured at Fort Scott was put into opera
ton after Kidding ourselves of these diff
culties. We commenced making sugar,
and we made there last year 235, 900 pounds
of as good sugar, believe, as you ever
put down your throats. Loud applause. J
No Touring mill ever turned out more
certainly its full complement Of flour to
the bushel of wheat than did this cane mill
turn out its full complement of sugar to
the ton of cane that was put in it, which
in the first workings amounted to over 100
pounds of sugar to each ton of cane, and IN
the second workings to about 20 pounds,
and in addition there were left to each ton
of cane about 10 gallons of molasses.
This was done by what is called the 'dif-
fusion process" which consists in cutting
up the cane on plan precisely similar to
that of cutting up the beets; slicing the
cane into thin pieces. This is done SO rap
idly that your cane can be sliced as fast as
it can be ground or rolled in any mill IN
South Carolina. These slices, of the thin
nest sort, are conveyed into round cells
holding one or two tons: A battery OF
twelve cells is so constructed that hot wa
1f
until the Juice stalks are exhausted Of eve
nv particle of saccharine which they con-
tain. They are then carried out and
thrown into pile by this endless carrier
system.
THE VERY BEST QUALITY.
Although we had adopted many of the
processes used in Europe and which were
essential to success, such as corbonization,
the injection of acid, the German sugar
process, and many others, we found, after
we got the pure juice unmixed with that
of the leaves, that it made of itself, without
any carbonization or filtering, the finest,
sweetest and best juice and the highest
grade of sugar.
That sugar sold right there by the car
load, ready for every farmers consump-
tion,-white sugar, cheap as it was last
year, dt OS duu VI Pei POolN' ShO"So
SAMPLES of it to Edward j. Gay, the.largg-
est sugar maker in Louisiana, and he said
he could see no difference in the world be-
tween that and the Southern sugar.
Every farm, therefore, can be made a
sugar farm. South Carolina is as good a
sugar State as Louisiana. Kansas is a
great sugar State, and Senator Plumb of
that State, has given great deal of atten-
tiOn to this matter, because other crops
sometimes completely fail and the sor-
ghum is the only reliable crop. Lately,
as you may have seen, they have been
having those terrible, hot southwest winds,
which have ruined nearly half of the corn
crop, leaving it as brown and dry as if
struck by the heaviest frost, yet sorghum
simply laughs at any such heat as that.
It has no fear of droughts, is one of the
hardest of plants; has the widest range of
latitude of any plant know. 1t is being
produced in Minnesota, where some sugar
and large amounts of syrup are being made,
but it cannot be planted there largely on
account of the early frosts, which come in
September. That climate requires an early
variety, which can be worked up rapidly.
But many of their men have made large
amounts of money. Hon. S. H. keenan,,
a friend of mine, is making 10000 to 10000
gallons of syrup and selling it there at GO or
70 cents gallon.
SORGHUM THE SUGAR KING.
No plant in the world can, in my judg-
ment, compete with sorghum as sugar
plant, first on account of its hardness, and
second, on account Of its easy cultivation.
For any farmer can plough during winter
or early spring with a cheap span of mules
or horses his forty or fifty or sixty acres
of ground, harrow it, drill it with his inn
proved double cultiyators, cultivate it
lust as he does corn, and he has raised that
crop without help. Whether he is black
man or white man he is capable of pro-
ducing this. And, gentlemen, the seed
which is produced upon that. will pay the
entire cost of cultivation. To every ton
of cane there are two bushels of seed, and
the average production in Kansas and New
Jersey, where this same diffusion process
has been practiced, is at least twelve tons
of cane to the acre and two bushels of seed
to the ton. What other plant can compete
with it? Will the Southern sugar cane
1t has no such compensating returns.
This seed is just as good for feeding
horses, cattle, sheep, swine and poultry as
Indian corn. Indeed, the Philadelphia
dairymen pay to the Rio Grand sugar men
ten cents more for the seed of sugar cane
than for Indian corn. They feed their
horses entirely upon sorghum with the ad'
dition of a little bran. They fatten upon
it the finest hogs l have ever seen, and
their swine command a premium in the
markets. There is no better food for sheep
or cattle. 1t is probably better to have it
run through a roller or grinder and to
have some bran mixed with it. But say
it is equal to the Indian corn, and pro-
duceS about the same number of bushels
to the acre, and the seed will pay the cost
of cultivation.