The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-01-09
A GLANCE AT SUGAR-MAKING.
Prof. Huston'S Views on the Diffusion Process
as He Saw 1t Used i'm Louisiana.

Prof. H. A. Huston, chemist of the Indi-
ana Agricultural Chemical Station, of Pur-
due University, has just returned from a
visit to Ex-Governor Wannoth's sugar
plantation at Magnolia, forty-fve miles be-
low New Orleans. Here the diffusion pro-
cess of making sugar is carried out more
perfectly than elsewhere in the United
States. Six hundred acres are i'm sugar
cane, making nearly 5000 pounds of sugar
to the acre, at profit of about $50 per acre.
The sugar costs about cents and is sold
from to 6 cents, according to grade. Prof.
Huston said yesterday: By this process
80 per cent. Cf all the sugar in the cane is
saved; by the old process of milling one
third of the sugar was thrown away
in the bagasse. "By the diffu-
sion process" he continued, sthe cane
is cut or torn into chips and shreds. These
are thrown into battery of fourteen cells,
each four feet across by twelve high. A
stream of hot water is passed through the
cells successfully and comes out containing
IL per cent. of cane sugar. This runs into
big tanks and is treated with lime while
hot, removing by the skimmings and sedi-
ments albuminous and gummy matters.
The syrup is dec olorized by running it
through huge filters of burnt bone. The
IL per cent. clear syrup is now run through
an evaporation, consisting of four great cyl
inders, about 4x22 feet, full of tubes like alo-
connective boiler. The sugar water in the first
is under pressure of twenty-eight inches,
of mercury, and much water passes off as
steam. This steam passes into the tubes of
the second cylinder in which the air pumps
have reduced the pressure to 20 inches,
and SO ON, using the evaporated water to
heat the next cylinder under pressure of
10 inches of mercury, and the last under
inches; thus all the heat is saved with
minimum of Pittsburg coal, the sugar
water is reduced to molasses containing
a vacuum pan, boiled by a steam coil under
inches of mercury, until 1t begins to crys-
tallize; hiscOntinues until over 4, 900 pounds
of sugar are in the vacuum pan.
The sugar now runs into a stirring ma
chine, is evenly mixed with the syrup, and
then passes into centrifugl whirlers which
60 at 1,500 turns minute, thr0wi rg out the
syrup and leaving the sugar, ready for
market-a beautiful white sugar sold for
cents pound all alongthe river, and north.
Seconds and thirds'-inferior grades-are
gotten out of the molasses, and the process
is completed. The chips run into the river.
The sugar lands are delta lands, low and
fiat, protected back and front by levees.
planted"
Professor Huston thinks the gulf region
from Florida to the Rio Grande, and ex-
tending back one hundred miles, would
make all the sugar required by the United
States, and leave a margin for expectation.
AS it is this. country makes about one
seventh of what it uses. The diffusion
process is the old sugar-beet process of
Europe, introduced, adapted and applied
through the efforts of Professor Harvey
Wiley, the Agricultural Department fur
nishing the experimental apparatus first
tried in Kansas on the large scale. Sugar is
made in the South from the middle of Sep
TENDER to Jan. /. In the Kansas belt tie
fusa5 time weather i frGm Sept Pss ear%
a a@bers cane a'n and r's orange a V eane
planted from seed. Professors Wiley and
Huston are sanguine much sugar will be
made in the Northern sugar belt from the
sorghum, and also from the beet Expert
ments will be continued by Prof. Huston
next year at Purdue on beet sugar work to
determine whether the industry will pay.
the recently published views of the Louisi-
ana planters are that they want the tariff
left severely alone, nor do they want q
bounty of cent a pound from the national
government, as has been proposed in COM
mittee, and as has been given by Kansas
and New Jersey. The bounty, the planters
say, would single out their industry and
make it point of criticism and attack.
The sum and substance of Prof Huston's
that the diffusion process is being success
fully applied, is saving the one-third of
sugar formerly thrown away with the
bagasse, and gives a promising outlook
for the making of all the sugar consumed
In the United StatcA