The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-11-03

from each of these 1000 loads would re-
quire the services of at least a score OF
men every day, while in reality one chem
list pretends to do the work. 1t is physi-
cal and mental impossibiiity for one man to
pass Judgment on so many loads in a single
day, and the proposition therefore shows
fraud on its very face. 1t is an actual fact
that one farmer taking two loads of beetS
from the same field received $40 per ton
for his first load, and but IS a ton for the
second load. thanks to the discriminating
power of the company's chemist.
Beet sugar pays the monopoly enormous
profits, while the farmers are working at a
loss Many of the sugar beet farmers in
and around Watsonville are laboring at a
direct loss of so per acre. None of the
farmers made any money last year. The
majority of them
RENT THEIR ACREAGE
from large land owners at price ranging
from 50 to S12 per acre. They find upon
actual experience that the cost of produc-
ing beets in a perfect condition will aver
age S35 to the acre. The work necessarily
must be done by hand. seeds sown, plants
reset, thus making the work very eXpen-
sive. The average yield is from ten to
fifteen tons to the acre
In the meantime, while the jacksonville
farmers are growing poor and suffering
from the evils of great monopoly, the
company is agitating the question of build
ing other beet sugar factories at Santa Ana,
San Diego, and other towns in California,
making the same glowing promises to the
farmers and beet growers as were made to
the unfortunate beet farmers living in the
vicinity of Watsonville.
The Spreckels beet sugar monopoly in
California is on par with the other grasp
ing corporations in the east.
The Watsonville beet sugar factory
utilities two methods of obtaining the Juice
from the beet-pressure and diffusion.
The roots are first thoroughly trimmed and
washed. They are then fed into pulpjng
machine, in which large drum, or cylin-
der, armed with closely set rows of saw
toothed blades, is revolved with great
rapidity, which reduce the tieshy roots to a
fine uniform pulp. The operation is as
sisted by pouring small quantities of water
or of watery juice upon the revolving
drum, which thins the pulp and aids the
free flow of the juice in the subsequent
operation. The expression is effected
either by hydraulic press or by continuous
roller presses. In order to obtain the
largest yield it is necessary to moisten the
first press cake and submit it to a second
pressure, whereby thin watery juice is
extracted. After having been pressed
twice the cake left amounts to about IL
per cent. of the original roots. The con-
tinuous pressure presses are similar to
those used in cane mills. Although these
continuous roller presses express from
to per cent less than the hydraulic
press, they are generally preferred TO the
latter, as they leave the cake
BETTER FOR FEEDING PURPOSES
than the hydraulic system
The juice thus obtained is by no means
pure sugar, but it contains much gum, acid
bodies, heterogeneous matter and various
salts. In order to separate these ingredi-
ents the juice is heated and treated with as
much as . per cent. lime, while carbonic
acid is simultaneously injected into it,
After being heated to Il temperature just
below the boiling point, the whole mass of
liquid is forced into filter press, and there
the lime compounds and impurities are
separated with great rapidity from the sac
charine juice. There are other systems of
separation. among them that of filtration
through animal charcoal, but the system
described is the one most in use. The next
operation is to concentrate the saccharine
juice. This is carried out in three closed
vessels, in which the vacuum pan princi-
pie of boiling is brought into play. These
pans are provided internally with a series
of closed pipes for steam heating, the
steam from the boiler of the first passing
by pipe into the worm of the third, and
similarly the steam from the second into
the worm of the third when the pan is en-
ployed. The steam which rises in the
third pan is drawn off by condenser and
vacuum pump, and, as the vacuum so
created acts through the whole series the
juice is evaporated and concentrated at a
comparatively low temperature by the
agency of the steam supplied to the first
Ian. Thus the juice increases in gravity as
it is drawn from one pan to the other. To
br ng it to crystallz ng point the eva lora-
ton is conducted at the lowest possible
temperature. By the aid of a condenser
and air pump vacuum is maintained over
the boiling juice, and the boiling point is
lowered in proportion to the decrease of
air pressure. By this method the boiled
down juice as it leaves the pan consists of
granny mass of crystals floating in liquid
syrup. After being allowed to cool, the
mass is fed into the drum or basket of a
centrifugal machine, which, by its rapid
rota ton, separates the fluid molasses from
the crystals, driving the liquid portion
through the meshed walls of the basket
The syrup is returned to the vacuum pans
and treated to a second process for further
extraction of the sugar crystals, and the
latter are cleaned by forcing steam into the
centrifugal drum. These sugar crystals,
or raw sugar, then go to the refinery to be
made into the sugar of commerce.