The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1890-07-02
forseveral years and many others around

me did the same.
Permit me to say here as can not in
troduce the whole article [ allude to in
the Louisiana Planter, which ought to be
read by all men who have sugar, that
with the heaviest mill power yet intro
duced per cent or more sugar is left in
the megass, just from the mll-diffusion
being the only process to get out the last
of it.
Will you read the following carefully
and reread it if you will realize it's force
The cane averaged fourteen and twenty three
one hundredths per cent. of total sugars, and
fourteen and sixty-three one hundredths per cent.
of fibre; the mill ex pressed sxty-three per cent. OF
the weight of the canes in juice. leaving thirty
seven per cent. of megass, containing seven and
eighty-iour one-hundredths per cent. of total
gars. The loss of sugars occasioned by crushing
of the canes amounted to two and nine one-hun
dredths per cent. of the weight of the
canes or to nineteen and eighty-two one
hundredths per cent. of the total sugars
present. The average loss in pre-
vious years twenty and sixty-fve one-hun-
dredths per cent. of the total sugars present.
This year, the average amount of crystalizable
sugar lost amounted to 1,744 pounds per acre.
Very nearly hogshead to the acre!
1t seems incredible. To the touch, a piece of
megass from the crushing of ordinarily good
mill will quite devoid of juice. Chew it, and
there appears no vestige of saccharine remaining
it. Yet the chemist tells us we are leaving
seven and eighty-four one, hundredths per cent
behind in this megass
DR.. Urich (the experimenter) says: The fault
lies almost entirely in the defective extraction of
the juice by mills for, from the eighty eight
parts Juice contained in one-hundred parts cane
only sixty to sxty-fve parts are expressed by
mills of good crushing powers, and even this
be considered already as a very fair average 1t
is quite exception, where amill can yield seven
ty ercent. ofuicein single crushing, while mills
of smaller sze hardly give fifty-five per
cent. 1t is not quite easy to understand how me-
gass OF perfectly dry appearance should still re-
tain such large quantities of Juice considering the
enormous pressure it had to stand between the
rollers of the mills. Nevertheless, this is the case
for, if you chop some freshly pressed megass into
small pieces and repress it, in strong press, you
will be surprised at the large amount of juice
oozing out from that dry megass.
At the laboratory on the estates of Messrs
Gregor, Turnbull Co., small hydraulic press,
capable of exerting pressure of3O0 atm spheres,
is kept for the purpose of chez king occasionally
the crushing power of the cane mills. If100 parts
fresh megass yields eighteen to twenty parts Juice
when repressed, the crushing OF the mills has been
very satisfactory. 1t is hardly possible to reach
a lower figure for any long period. Megass from
smaller mills as they are in use on muscovado
estates, yields often thirty per cent juice, when
tested in similar manner.
Now if the reader has fully considered
the above facts SO carefully demonstra-
ted, that no shade of doubt can possibly
exist within the par view of reasonable
intelligence, he finds it drives irresi stibly
to the repulsive fact that all of our COM
mon Florida farmers, who have always,
and are still using Uncommon iron mills,
have lost nearly one half of the sugar
contents of their cane, that where other
items of loss are added in, especially in
the manner OF drippings, that a loss of
half of each crop will barely reach the fig
ures.
Can it be so'' exclaims the man who
has not only claimed to make his crops
pay a handsome dividend, but has posi-
lively done so. "Can it be so' my friend
and do you presume to doubt it? Now
Tho oouc IS SC n foo+,3 ;o ~, ,7o W.,